Joan Abelló

JOAN ABELLÓ PRAT (Mollet del Vallés, Barcelona, 1922 - Barcelona, 2008).
"Landscape ", 1974.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner. Signed, dated and titled on the back.
Size: 81 x 100 cm; 98 x 116,5 cm (frame).
A painter and engraver, Joan Abelló began his training as a self-taught artist, and his first paintings were greatly influenced by the works of Joaquín Mir in Mollet. He then studied at the Baixas Academy and at the Royal Artistic Circle of Barcelona (1941), and later became a disciple of Pere Pruna, working for two years in his studio (1944-46). Pruna taught him the techniques of mural painting and engraving, and he also learned restoration in Miracle's studio. In 1945 he exhibited his work in Barcelona for the first time, and the following year he began working in the studio of Carlos Pellicer, with whom he worked for fourteen years. He completed his studies with trips to London, Belgium, Paris and the Isle of Man, among other places. In the 1960s he returned to his native town, where he again became interested in the landscapes of the Vallés and the Mediterranean, although he did not abandon his extensive travels in Europe, Africa, the Ivory Coast, Morocco and Brazil. An outstanding collector, in 1996 he donated his art collection to Mollet Town Council, which created the Joan Abelló Municipal Museum three years later. Attached to the museum is the artist's birthplace, which since 2002 has housed a restoration workshop and art studies centre. Abelló began his career developing a certain impressionist tendency, before moving towards post-impressionism in the late 1940s without losing links with his initial language, always with an explosion of colours applied with violent brushstrokes. Years later his style evolved, becoming more materialistic painting under the influence of Informalism and accentuating his expressionism without ever abandoning figuration. From 1940 onwards, the year in which he held his first exhibition in his native town, even before moving to Barcelona to study, Abelló held exhibitions both in Spain and in London, Paris, New York and Moscow. In 2002 he was appointed member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi. He is represented in the Museum that bears his name, as well as in the MACBA in Barcelona, the Courtauld Collection in London, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Vatican Museum, the Poldersmuseum in Belgium and the Francesc Galí Legacy.

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