Josep Mª Subirachs (1927-2014) - The sovs

Signed in pencil by the artist at the bottom and with edition 59/150

In good condition

Framed (slight signs of use in the framing)

Litography dimensions: 50 cm x 67 cm.

Frame dimensions: 54 cm x 72 cm.

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Subirachs Sitjar, José Maria. Barcelona, 11.III.1927 – 7.IV.2014. Sculptor, draftsman and etcher.

Born into a working-class family, at fifteen he joined the workshop of sculptor Enrique Monjo as an apprentice. For a while he combined work with drawing classes at the Barcelona Superior School of Fine Arts, where he attended as a free student. From Monjo he learned the craft, but the teacher who influenced him most directly was Enrique Casanovas, with whom he could only work for a brief period, since the famous Noucentist sculptor died in 1948, a few months after Subirachs entered his workshop as an assistant.

The influence of Noucentist Mediterraneanism is evident in his early works, although the stylization of those terracotta figures already pointed toward the expressionist phase that would begin in the 1950s with sculptures such as Europe (1953), Moses (1953), The Woman of Potiphar (1954), Oedipus and Antigone (1955) or The Fates (1956).

In 1951 the French Institute of Barcelona had awarded him a grant to study in Paris, and in the same year he took part in the First Hispanic-American Biennial in Madrid; in 1953 he won the First Prize for Sculpture at the “Salon de Jazz” in Barcelona and participated in the Second Hispanic-American Biennial in Havana. The following year he moved to Belgium, where he resided for two years and participated in the Antwerp Biennale. It was from this moment that he became a professional sculptor who saw the possibility of earning a living from his work.

From expressionism he moved toward an organic abstraction with works such as Babel Tower (1955), in a process toward a personal style increasingly distant from figurative references and which, by the end of the 1950s, led him to become interested in iron, but not as material worked in the craftsperson sense, rather using industrial techniques such as welding. In the same period he worked with other materials (bronze, concrete, terracotta, stoneware, ceramics, wood), seeking to highlight the plastic qualities of their varied structures, tonalities, and textures. To achieve balance in some works he incorporated blocks of stone, not as pedestals but as counterweights, or composed iron-and-wood structures like Tekel (1958), a work that earned the Julio González Sculpture Prize.

Between 1958 and 1960 he began his important contribution in the field of public sculpture, being the first sculptor to place abstract works in the public streets of Barcelona: Forma 212 (1958, Barcelona, Paseo del Valle de Hebrón), Marine Evocation (1958-1960, Barcelona, Paseo Juan de Borbón), not without provoking controversy due to its modernity. In the same period he worked at the sanctuary of the Virgin of the Way, inaugurated in 1961 in León, where he created the monumental figures on the façade (the Virgin and the twelve apostles), four doors cast in bronze and various interior elements of the temple: tabernacle, crucifixes, pulpits, candelabras, lamps. This ensemble, which has been regarded as a milestone in the Spanish art renewal of the 20th century, represents a figurative interlude and, at the same time, the culmination of his expressionist phase. Parallelly he initiated the series José Corredor-Matheos called “penetrations and tensions,” with pieces fitted together and iron struts and screws as the most common plastic elements. Among the most representative monumental works of this phase stands out the Monument to the Mexico Olympics (1968, Mexico City).

From the seventies he opted for a new figurativity that led him to openly and manifestly claim the Theme (with a capital T) and firmly established his characteristic iconography, the product of his constant reflections: the man-woman relationship, life and death, the role of man in the world, the role of art throughout history.

From this moment all his work was conditioned by a dialectical duality, by a counterpoint of elements that opposed and complemented each other. The main plastic resources he introduced were the running profiles forming friezes with moldings, the turned shapes, the balustrades, the positive-negative play, and even the combination of sculptural and pictorial elements. By the mid-seventies he intensified the iconographic references to the Renaissance and Baroque, with tributes or allusions to works by Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Bernini, Dürer, or Rembrandt. In the same period he incorporated classical elements such as capitals, Caryatids, niches, balustrades, and mythological connotations.

In 1986 Subirachs was commissioned to create the sculptural ensemble on the façade of the Passion of the Sagrada Família, the expiatory temple that Gaudí designed and began but left unfinished in Barcelona.

To represent the various scenes of the last days of Jesus Christ’s life, the sculptor reclaimed figurative expressionism, aiming to heighten the pathos the theme demanded, but simultaneously, while creating other works apart from that commission, he recovered and adapted the language of abstraction with structures dominated by geometric forms.

Thus, he achieved creations of metaphysical conception, through which he sought to express the tensions of the natural world, fleeing figurativism and resorting to a language rich in architectural references.

Besides his work as a sculptor, Subirachs has been a prolific draftsman and author of graphic works, into which he ventured from 1970 onward, both in the field of copperplate engraving, especially etching, and in lithography. Often drawings are introductory to a theme, i.e., the first version of what will later become a sculpture or relief, while lithographs are usually disseminators of a sculptural work, multiplying its image with numerous variants.

In addition to Subirachs’ prominent presence throughout Catalonia, with countless monumental works loaded with symbolism referring to Catalonia’s history, there is a notable international projection, with numerous exhibitions held and monumental works in cities and museums around the world.