Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa

HERMENEGILDO ANGLADA CAMARASA (Barcelona, 1871 - Pollença, Mallorca, 1959).
First version of "Bailarina española". 1906.
Oil on canvas.
Original reproduced in the catalogue "Anglada-Camarasa" by Francesc Fontbona and Francesc Miralles, Ediciones Polígrafa. pg 74 (num. 170).
Measurements: 67 x 66,5 cm; 87 x 87 cm (frame).
This portrait of a gypsy woman wearing an embroidered dress and black shawl is a preparatory oil painting for "Bailarina española" (1906), a work reproduced in the "Anglada-Camarasa" catalogue by Fontbona and Miralles. In the preliminary version, all the elements of the definitive work are already present, although it is dominated by a sketchy brushstroke, typical of a study. Paradoxically, Las bailarinas andaluzas was a subject that Camarasa began to deal with when he was outside Spain, already in Paris. In the French capital, flamenco dancing became a plastic pretext for investigating the dissolution of forms, arabesques and feminine sensuality. On this occasion, however, the woman wearing a comb and red ribbon is seated in an armchair, making the brushstrokes less delicate than in other works of his from the same period, as here he focuses his attention on the gaze illuminated by large black eyes, the carmine smile and her shrewd demeanour. Floral embroidery on black silk flashes in all colours between the long fringes of the mantilla. A single foot peeps out from under the colourful fabric, encased in a white slipper. The veined hands with long fingers show the agitation they take on when the dance sets them in motion.
Anglada Camarasa is one of the leading names in modern Catalan art, and undoubtedly the most internationally important of Spanish Post-Impressionism. He was the youngest painter of the second modernist generation, and is considered an outstanding representative of Post-Impressionism. He began his training with Tomás Moragas and later continued at the La Lonja School in Barcelona as a disciple of Modesto Urgell, whom he always proclaimed to be his great master, although his mature style was very different from Urgell's. During this period of training, his work was very different from that of Urgell. During this formative period Anglada Camarasa's work shows a clear interest in landscape and the human figure. After a brief contact with the "Els Quatre Gats" group, in 1894 he moved to Paris, where his style was influenced by Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Fauvism and Orientalism. In the French capital he continued his training at the academies of Julian and Colarossi, where he was taught by Laurens, Constant and Girardot. France was for Anglada Camarasa the platform for his international launching. His solo exhibition at the Sala Parés in Barcelona in May 1900 and his time at "Els Quatre Gats" gave Catalan modernism a direct knowledge of the most modern painting in Paris, a circumstance that was a determining factor in the young Picasso's turn towards plastic modernism. Still in Paris, in 1904 Anglada Camarasa joined the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, of which he became a very active member, participating assiduously in its exhibitions. During this period his international activity multiplied and he took part in the Venice Biennials of 1903, 1905 and 1907, receiving the Gold Medal in the latter year, a prize he also won at the Buenos Aires Biennial of 1910. He had a solo exhibition at the Barcelona International in 1929. He was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1954, and three years later he was awarded the March Foundation art prize. Anglada Camarasa played a leading role in some of the most important moments in the history of art in the first half of the 20th century, and his success from 1900 onwards made his name an international point of reference. His work was exhibited all over Europe, from Rome to Prague and from Paris to Moscow, and attracted major collectors in the main European capitals as well as in the United States.

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