Manolo Hugué

MANOLO HUGUÉ (Barcelona, 1872 - Caldas de Montbui, Barcelona, 1945).
"Oxen".1917.
Ceiling in terracotta.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Work catalogued in: Montserrat Blanch, "Manolo", Barcelona, Polígrafa, 1972, p. 62, nº93 (stone copy).
Measurements: 38 x 38 x 5 cm.
In the catalogue raisonné on Manolo Hugué written by Montserrat Blanch, several works are reproduced (preparatory drawings, bas-reliefs in terracotta, but also in stone) whose subject matter are oxen (generally represented in pairs), of which the piece in question forms part. It was produced between 1917 and 1923, a period in which the sculptor gave new thematic and formal suggestions to terracotta. On his return to Ceret, after his Parisian period, he devoted himself to the study of cadences, rhythms, archaic-inspired essentialism... a series of strategies to escape from all stagnation and to renew the language of sculpture while continuing to dialogue with the classics. In this relief, a serene energy pulsates like an invisible force through the bodies, through the rounded profiles and alternating with geometric incisions. The front legs of the recumbent ox are bent to adapt to the angle, seeking a certain conceptual tension between the volumes and their confinement within a precise quadrangular limit. In doing so, he emulated the Greek art developed in the metopes. The spatial indication is brief and synthetic: a few schematic elements outline the idea of a stable.
Manuel Martínez Hugué, Manolo Hugué, trained at the Escuela de la Lonja in Barcelona. A regular participant in the gatherings at Els Quatre Gats, he became friends with Picasso, Rusiñol, Mir and Nonell. In 1900 he moved to Paris, where he lived for ten years. There he resumed his relationship with Picasso, and became friends with other avant-garde theoreticians such as Apollinaire, Modigliani, Braque and Derain. In the French capital he worked on the design of jewellery and small sculptures, influenced by the work of his friend, the sculptor and goldsmith Paco Durrio. In 1892 he worked with Torcuato Tasso on decorative works for the celebrations of the centenary of the Discovery of America. Between 1910 and 1917, devoted entirely to sculpture, he worked in Ceret, where he brought together a heterogeneous group of artists including Juan Gris, Joaquín Sunyer and, once again, Picasso. During these years he held exhibitions in Barcelona, Paris and New York. In 1932 he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Jorge in Barcelona. In Hugué's work, what is essential is the relationship with nature, taking into account the human figure as an integrated element in it. This is a characteristic of Noucentista classicism, but in Hugué's hands it goes beyond its limited origins. He usually depicted peasants, although he also depicted bullfighters and dancers - as can be seen on this occasion - always portrayed with a level of detail and an appreciation of textures that reveal his early training as a goldsmith. In his artistic production, Mediterranean tradition, Greek classicism and archaism, and the art of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia coexist with the European avant-garde, which he assimilated and knew at first hand, specifically Matisse's Fauvism and Cubism. Works by Hugué are housed in the MACBA, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, among many others.