Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Interior con figura

Signed by the artist on the bottom part

The work is presented as is, unframed

Artwork measurements: 73 cm in height x 60 cm in width

Good conservation state

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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), being the last living person born in this emblematic building surrounded by volcanoes (he currently lives in San Feliu de Guísols). This fact marks his painter’s path. A man of old Catalonia, cultured, he has always felt attracted to the Middle Ages, the Romanesque of the Pyrenees, and primitive Gothic. The trace 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 between the old and the new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have shaped him most is the knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic art. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—luminous, beautiful in themselves and for themselves. A pupil of mural painter and printmaker Ricard Marlet, he learns what is most important to him: the discipline of drawing. With Maestro Marlet he becomes acquainted with Modernism and Catalan Nouveau-Century. 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 be immersed in Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the meninas to his liking, with his own style, in bright color tones such as pink and phosphorescent violet that leave no doubt about the artist’s emphasis, modernity, and charm. Moreover, if one looks closely, one can find the use by the artist of the collage technique, into which he embeds 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 started holding solo exhibitions in Terrassa in 1968, later in other Catalan cities and in Paris (Espace and Boutique galleries). His work began in a Mediterranean figuration, eventually evolving into abstraction, then returning to a modern figurative concept. He is considered, ultimately, one of the most important exponents of Mediterranean painting.

All these tendencies 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 meets renowned artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, or Tapies. His painting is characterized by the use of vivid and rich colors. His work can be defined in a single word: LIFE. Thus, the magnificent work of this Catalan painter is characterized by its rich, dense color, which, together with the various materials he uses as support, yields a high-quality chromatic expressionist painting with a strong personality, defining the artist as a master.

The classic and the new merge within Miquel Torner de Semir’s brush. Time dissolves, 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 paintings. His method: passion. His achievement: all his work.

The painter from Girona is influenced by the ancients—Giotto, the Italian Renaissance, and the informal search of abstract painters. All of this is the starting point of his painting; the craft as much as the concept concerns him. He has tried to be a bridging painter between past and present, but also open to everything new, to constant exploration. An interesting contrast in Miquel’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient times rendered with modern painting techniques. This eminent 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 astonishing that the work is a two-dimensional canvas, seeming to the naked eye that the painting is 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 vacant look of the faces that invites the viewer to delve into the environment of the work and the artist’s thinking. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has his own style based on the simplicity of execution 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, a Barcelona native and 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, generating specially elaborated creations where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is noticeable. He exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise in pictorial academicism in which he 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, pure colors to express feelings. When possible he makes the painting within the painting, and even attempts to place abstract interpretations and signs in his backgrounds. This achieves a positive relation among 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 execution within a very well-structured composition. His female figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the peace 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 feelings easily to those who know his work."

For J. Llop S.: "Drawing, the fundamental stroke, 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 link with the reality he describes and clothes with a chromaticism that combines basic colors, soft hues. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. An interesting and attractive work that captivates the viewer and leads him along the path of the imaginative".

Consistent with his vision of the primitive, he has not worried too much about his social projection toward his teachers; these were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan, a comprehensive catalog of his résumé is hard to compile. He currently exhibits permanently at La Galería Arcadia in Madrid.

In 2003 he was chosen by the Royal Mint Museum to have one of his works issued on a postage stamp and to participate in the exhibition for the XXV Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. In the meantime, the Royal Mint Museum 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. Now, below, some of the artist’s most important exhibitions:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.
Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.
Sociéte des Artistes Indépendants. Paris.
Grand Palais. Paris.
Dan Art, Béziers-France.
Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.
Lyons Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Honored guest at the exhibition of the Cercle Español. 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’Hotel 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. Strasbourg.France.
Haus Arnold. Frankfurt am Main.Germany.
Haus Berlinghoff. Heidelberg.Germany.
Naumilenium. Barcelona.
L’art 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 collective, 2009-Tarragona.