JOAN JOSEP THARRATS VIDAL (Girona, 1918 - Barcelona,... Lot 38

JOAN JOSEP THARRATS VIDAL (Girona, 1918 - Barcelona, 2001). "Nou discos". 1976. Oil on canvas. Signed in the lower right corner. Size: 81 x 100 cm; 84 x 103 cm (frame). In this painting made by Tharrats in the seventies, we can contemplate the consolidation of a language of material and informalist roots, which on this occasion stages the symbolic struggle between chaos (represented by the marble magma that emerges from the ground) and the cosmos (symbolised by the floating circles, of perfect geometry). After beginning his training in Béziers (France), in 1935 Tharrats returned to Barcelona and enrolled at the Massana School. He began his artistic activity after the Civil War, in a style that evolved from a certain initial impressionism towards a progressive abstraction, through the influences of Mondrian and Kandinsky. Co-founder of Dau al Set together with Brossa, Ponç, Cuixart and Tàpies, Tharrats made his individual debut in 1949 at the El Jardín galleries in Barcelona. From 1954 he exhibited regularly at the Sala Gaspar in Barcelona, as well as in 1955 in Stockholm and New York, in 1959 at the São Paulo Biennial, and in Venice at the Biennials of 1960 and 1964. In 1955, after the dissolution of Dau al Set, he took part in the formation of the Taüll group together with Muxart, Guinovart and his former colleagues Cuixart and Tàpies. Eleven years later, in 1966, he also founded the Asociación de Artistas Actuales. A pioneer of post-war Catalan avant-gardism, Tharrats evolved from the surrealist-influenced linear abstraction of his Dau al Set period towards an informalism of rich texture, abundant colour and free graphics. Apart from easel painting, he developed his own version of printmaking techniques ("maculatures"), and also made posters, book illustrations, murals, stained glass, mosaics, jewellery and opera scenographies. In 1983 he was awarded the Cross of Sant Jordi, and in 1994 the National Prize for Plastic Arts. That same year he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi. His work can be found in various museums and collections around the world, such as the MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the MACBA and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.