Ricardo Opisso

RICARDO OPISSO I SALA (Tarragona, 1880 - Barcelona, 1966).
"Miquel Utrillo".
Charcoal on paper.
Signed with an anagram in the lower left corner.
Dedicated in the lower right-hand corner: "Miquel Utrillo, l'amic de la Susanne Valadon, pare adoptiu del pintor Utrillo".
Measurements: 53 x 39 cm; 88 x 71 cm (frame).
Portrait of the painter Miquel Utrillo, an emblematic figure of modernist Barcelona, who introduced Opisso to the Barcelona circle of the Quatre Gats. Utrillo was then the lover of Suzanne Valadon (as the dedication says), whose son, the also famous painter Maurice Utrillo, Miquel would recognise as his own. Opisso was a great portraitist. He captured with great formal economy the character of the sitter, who often belonged to his most intimate environment.
Opisso was a painter, draughtsman and cartoonist. In his youth he took part in Barcelona's modernist environment, and in 1894 he began to work as an apprentice with Antoni Gaudí on the Sagrada Família. Two years later, backed by the architect, he became a member of the Círculo Artístico de Sant Lluc, with whom he would later exhibit at the Sala Parés. He was linked to the group Els Quatre Gats, together with Ramon Casas, Manuel Hugué, Isidre Nonell and Pablo Picasso, among others. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century he made a trip to Paris, where Picasso and Hugué were already there. Throughout his career Opisso worked as an illustrator in publications such as "Cu-cut!" and "L'Esquella de la Torratxa", signing drawings aimed at political satire, in a style close to Art Nouveau. In 1907 he took part in the Fine Arts Exhibition in Barcelona and was awarded a third-class medal. Due to the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, Opisso abandoned political satire and his drawings moved towards genre themes, specialising in popular scenes. His works from this period are characterised by the presentation of motley crowds of people in popular Barcelona settings. After exhibiting several times in succession at the Sala Parés, he held his first solo exhibition in 1935 at the Syra galleries in Barcelona. During the post-war period he continued to exhibit in various galleries in Barcelona, and reaped considerable success with both critics and the public. In 1953 he received recognition from his hometown at the 4th Tarragona Art Fair. Most of his work is kept in the Opisso Museum in Barcelona, but it is also present in the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg. In terms of exhibitions, the one held at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in 2004 under the title "Catalan Painting, from Naturalism to Noucentisme", in which his work "Carnival" was exhibited, is particularly noteworthy.

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