Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Interior con figura

Signed by the artist at the bottom

The work is presented framed the painting

Dimensions of the work: 50 cm high x 40 cm wide

Frame dimensions: 62 cm high x 53 cm wide

Good condition

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BIOGRAPHY OF MIQUEL TORNER DE SEMIR.

Miquel Torner de Semir was born in 1938 in the castle of Santa Pau, in La Garrotxa (Girona), the last living person born in this emblematic building surrounded by volcanoes (currently he lives in Sant Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his painterly facet. A man of old Catalonia, cultured, he has always felt drawn to the Middle Ages, Romanesque of the Pyrenees, and primitive Gothic. The influence of Italian Renaissance art, especially painters of the Italian Quattrocento such as Fra Angelico or Raphael, can be felt in many of Torner de Semir’s female portraits, including the one we have here. It is precisely that blend of old and new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have shaped him most is knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass windows, luminous, beautiful in themselves. A disciple of the mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what is most important to him: the discipline of drawing. Under Maestro Marlet he becomes acquainted with Modernism and Catalan Noucentisme. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Sant Jordi in Barcelona and at the San Fernando School in Madrid, where he would visit the Prado Museum and absorb Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the las meninas to his liking, in his own style, with lively color tones such as pink and phosphorescent violet that leave no doubt about the accent, modernity and charm of the artist. Moreover, if one looks closely, one can notice the artist’s use of collage techniques, embedding a piece of fabric, cardboard, or even a sheet of music.

In Paris, he begins his work as he calls it “between the old and the new.” He began to hold solo exhibitions in Terrassa in 1968, later in other Catalan cities and in Paris (Espace and Boutique galleries). His work started in a Mediterranean figurativism, evolving then into abstraction, to return to a figuration with a modern concept. He is considered, ultimately, one of the most important exponents of Mediterranean painting.

All these trends were not unknown to him, since in Barcelona he had the chance to meet the group Dau al Set. In the Dau al Set school he encountered renown artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, or Tapiés. His painting is characterized by the use of bright, rich colors. His work can be defined in a single word: LIFE. Thus, the magnificent works of this Catalan painter are characterized by their rich and cohesive color palette of great vivacity, which, together with the various materials he uses as support, gives us the result of an expressive, high-quality chromatic and strongly personal painting, defining the artist as a master.

The classical and the new fuse within the brush of Miquel Torner de Semir. Time becomes diluted, fades away. The dividing line between past and present is erased with his paintings, with his way of drawing on the canvas. Miquel achieves what very few before him have managed: to speak of the past with the voice of the present. His voice: his canvases. His method: passion. His achievement: all of his work.

The painter from Girona is influenced by the ancients, Giotto, Italian Renaissance, and the informal pursuit of abstract painters. All this is the starting point of his painting; he cares as much or more for craft than for concept, trying to be a bridge-painter between the past and present, but also open to all that is new, to constant search. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient eras, depicted with modern painting techniques. This illustrious Catalan painter has been able to break the rules of time. So direct is Miquel Torner de Semir in defining lines and shapes that, at first glance, the work seems to be a two-dimensional canvas, as if the painting were a sum of textures from a three-dimensional world.

Some of his works have a notable faubist accent, with an intense and expressive color palette, in contrast to the serenity and blank gaze of the faces that invites the viewer to delve into the setting of the work and the artist’s thoughts. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has a personal style based on the simplicity of creation within a very well-structured composition. The female figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the calm of the spirit. The figure serves Semir to claim order and the rhythm of human actions.

According to Joan Lluís Montañé, Barcelonan, member of the International Association of Art Critics, the prestigious Catalan painter Torner de Semir, in his extensive pictorial work, “is interested in composition and color, generators of especially elaborate creations, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is evident. It shows figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise of pictorial academicism in which it does not renounce a certain formal and technical innovation, all within an unmistakable personal plastic seal.”

Art critic Josep M. Cadena says of Semir: “The painter marks with strong and precise lines the silhouettes of the main elements of each composition and uses basic and pure colors to express feelings. When possible, he makes the painting within the painting, and even tries to place in his backgrounds interpretations and abstract signs. Thus he achieves a positive relationship between the various forms of artistic expression that motivate him, and his plastic language is much richer and more attractive. He has a style of his own based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. His female figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the calm that must govern the realizations of the spirit. The figure serves to demand order and rhythm in human actions; his painting is ethical. He communicates positive sensations easily to those who know his work.”

For J. Llop S.: “Drawing, the fundamental line, strong, precise, incisive, establishes the form, delineates spaces in the meditated compositions that Torner de Semir presents to us. And then comes the seeing in a different way, the imaginative, the dreams that connect with the reality he describes and dresses with a chromaticism that combines basic colors with soft tones. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. An interesting and engaging work that captivates the viewer and leads him along the path of the imaginative.”

Consistent with his primitive vision, he has not worried much about his social projection toward his masters, who were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America and Japan; a comprehensive compilation of his curriculum is difficult. He currently exhibits permanently at La Galería Arcadia in Madrid.

In 2003 he is chosen by the Museo de la Real Casa de la Moneda (Royal Mint) to have one of his works issued on a postage stamp and to participate in the XXV anniversary of the Spanish Constitution exhibition. Meanwhile, the Royal Mint in Madrid has organized an exhibition of his works.

Torner’s works have been exhibited in a large number of European and Spanish cities such as: Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Strasbourg, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Dijon, Clermont-Ferrand, Barcelona, Girona, Valencia, Seville, Pontevedra, Oviedo, etc. Let us now look at some of the most significant exhibitions of the Catalan artist:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.
Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.
Societé des Artistes Indépendants. Paris.
Grand Palais. Paris.
Dan Art, Béziers-France.
Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.
Lions Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Honorary guest at the exhibition of the Cercle Español. Dreux - France.
Salon d’Automne. Clermont Ferrand - France.
Grand Prix la Femme et l’Immobilière Jeanne Gatineau. Paris.
Sala Gavina. Palamós - Girona.
Sala Clará, Olot-Barcelona.
Espai cultural Francolí-Barcelona.
Galerie Boutique. Paris, France.
La Galerie de l’hôtel Meridian. Paris.
L’Atelier. Platja d’Aro. Girona.
Ausstellungsräume der Mineralquelle Eptigen. Switzerland.
Galería Arcadia- Madrid.
Galería de arte Star. Colectiva. Madrid.
Galería 4 Cantons. Olot. Girona.
Galería Catalonia-Barcelona.
Galería Art 16. Olot. Girona.
Pedreguet Art espai contemporani. Girona.
Galería Da Vinci Art. Girona.
Galerie Ducs de Dijon. France.
Galería Campo u Campo. Belgium.
Galería B.C.S. Straßburg. France.
Haus Arnold. Frankfurt am Main. Germany.
Haus Berlinghoff. Heidelberg. Germany.
Naumilenium. Barcelona.
Lart century art. Barcelona.
Real Club Náutico de Sanxenxo. Pontevedra.
Picassomio.com Madrid.
Galeries d’Art Christian Dazy. Dijon-Megève-France.
Exhibition commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. Madrid.
Sala Constanti Art, Reus. Christmas Group Show, 2009-Tarragona.
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