Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Interior con figura

Signed by the artist on the bottom

The work is presented unframed

Dimensions of the piece: 50 cm high x 40 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 Garrotxa (Girona), being the last living person born in this emblematic building surrounded by volcanoes (currently living in San Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his facet as a painter. A man of old Catalonia, cultured, he has always been drawn to the Middle Ages, the Romanesque of the Pyrenees, and primitive Gothic art. The influence of Italian Renaissance art, especially painters of the Italian Quattrocento such as Fra Angelico or Raphael, is felt in many of Torner de Semir’s female portraits, such as the one we have here. It is precisely that mix between the old and the new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have shaped him the most is his knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic art. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—bright, beautiful in themselves and by themselves. A disciple of mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what he considers most important, the discipline of drawing. With Master Marlet he becomes familiar with Modernism and the 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 soak in Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the girls’ portraits to his own taste, with his own style, using vivid colors such as pink and phosphorescent violet that leave no doubt about the emphasis, modernity, and charm of the artist. Moreover, if you look closely, you can notice the use of collage technique by the artist, who decides to embed a piece of fabric, cardboard, or even a musical score.

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

All these trends were not new to him since in Barcelona he had the opportunity to meet the Dau al Set group. In the Dau al Set school he meets renowned artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, or Tapies. His painting is characterized by the use of bright and rich colors. His work can be defined in one word: LIFE. Thus, the magnificent work of this Catalan painter is characterized by its rich and impasto color, with great vivacity, which together with the diverse materials he uses as support gives us the result of an expressionist painting of high chromatic quality and marked personality, defining the artist as a master.

The classical and the new fuse in Miquel Torner de Semir’s brush. Time dissolves, fades. 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 paintings. His method: passion. His achievement: all of his work.

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

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

According to Joan Lluís Montañé, a Barcelonan and member of the International Association of Art Critics, the prestigious Catalan painter Torner de Semir, in his extensive pictorial work, “takes an interest in composition and color, generators of specially elaborated creations, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is evident. He exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that represent a clear exercise of pictorial academicism in which he does not renounce a certain formal and technical innovation, all within an unmistakable personal plastic mark.”

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, pure colors to express feelings. When possible he paints the painting within the painting, and even tries to place abstract interpretations and signs in his backgrounds. This achieves a positive relationship between the various forms of artistic expression that motivate him, and his plastic language becomes much richer and more attractive. He has a personal style based on the simplicity of realization within a very well-structured composition. His female figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the peace that must guide human realizations; the figure serves to order and pace human actions; his painting is ethical. He communicates positive sensations easily to those who know his work.”

For J. Llop S.: “Drawing, the fundamental stroke, strong, precise, incisive, establishes the form, defines spaces in the meditated compositions that Torner de Semir presents. And then comes the seeing in a different way, the imaginative, the dreams that connect with the reality he describes and clothes 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. A work that is interesting and engaging, which traps the viewer and guides him along the path of the imaginative.”

Consistent with his primitivist vision, he has not worried much about his social projection toward his masters; they were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan, it is difficult to make an exhaustive summary of his résumé. 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 to have one of his works issued on a postage stamp and to participate in the XXV anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. Meanwhile, the Museum of the Real Casa de la Moneda 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. See below, some of the artist’s most important exhibitions in Catalan painting:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.
Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.
Société des Artistes Indépendants. Paris.
Grand Palais. Paris.
Dan Art, Béziers-France.
Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.
Lyions Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Guest of honor at the exhibition of Cercle Espanyol. Dreux - France.
Salon d’Automne. Clermont-Ferrand - France.
Grand Prix la Femme et l’Imabonaire Jeanne Gatineau. Paris.
Sala Gavina. Palamós - Girona.
Sala Clará, Olot-Barcelona.
Espai cultural Francolí-Barcelona.
Galerie Boutique. Paris, France.
La Galerie de l’Hôtel Méridien. Paris.
L’Atelier. Platja d’Aro. Girona.
Ausstellungsraume 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. Estrasburgo. France.
Haus Arnold. Frankfurt am Main. Germany.
Haus Berlinghoff. Heidelberg. Germany.
Naumilenium. Barcelona.
Lart century art. Barcelona.
Real Club Naútico 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 2009 - Tarragona.
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