Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Composición figurativa

Signed by the artist on the bottom

The work is presented well-framed with a polychromed wooden frame

Dimensions of the artwork: 73 cm in height x 60 cm in width

Frame dimensions: 90 cm in height x 77 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 Sant Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his painter’s path. A man of old Catalonia, cultured, he has always been drawn to the Middle Ages, the 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 this blend of the old and the new that lies at the heart of his originality. What seems to have shaped him most is knowledge of the Romanesque and Gothic. His figures, often outlined by a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass windows—luminous, beautiful in themselves. A pupil of mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what he considers most important: the discipline of drawing. Under Maestro Marlet he encounters 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 visited the Prado Museum and absorbed Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the “Las Meninas” to his taste, in his own style, with bright colors like pink and fluorescent violet that leave no doubt about the artist’s emphasis, modernity, and charm. Moreover, if you look closely, you can notice the artist’s use of collage techniques, embedding 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 figurativism, evolving into abstraction, and 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, as in Barcelona he had the chance to meet the Dau al Set group. In the Dau al Set school he encounters renowned artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, and Tapies. His painting is characterized by the use of vivid, 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, cohesive color and the various materials he uses as support, yielding a high-quality chromatic expressionist painting with a strong personality, defining the artist as a master.

The classical and the new fuse under Miquel Torner de Semir’s brush. Time dissolves, fades away. The dividing line between past and present is erased by his paintings, by his way of laying down on the canvas. Miquel achieves what very few have before: 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 this is the starting point of his painting; he is as concerned with craft as with concept, trying to be a bridge painter between past and present, but also open to all that is new, in constant search. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient times in a modern painting technique. This illustrious Catalan painter has managed to break with the rules of time. So direct is Miquel Torner de Semir in defining lines and shapes that, at first glance, it seems the painting is a three-dimensional textures' sum rather than a two-dimensional canvas.

Some of his works carry a notable Fauvist accent, with an intense, expressive color palette, contrasting with the serenity and vacant stare of the faces that invite the viewer to immerse themselves in the artwork’s environment and the artist’s thinking. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has his own style based on the simplicity of execution within a well-structured composition. The female figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the inner 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 body of work, “is interested in composition and color, a generator of especially elaborated creations, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is evident. He exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise of 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 speaks 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 inside the painting, and even tries to place abstract interpretations and signs in his backgrounds. In this way 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 his own style based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. His female figures have the paused forms of religious art and express the calm that their realizations of the spirit must obey. 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, defines spaces in the meditated compositions that Torner de Semir presents to us. And then comes the seeing differently, the imaginative, the dreams that connect with the reality he describes and dresses with a chromatic that blends basic colors and soft tones. It’s a personal style that discovers the other reality of landscape, of the figure. An interesting and attractive work that captivates the viewer and leads him on the path of the imaginative.”

Consistent with his view of the primitive, he has not worried too much about its social projection toward his teachers; these were sometimes unnamed and although his works are in many countries, he has shown in Europe, America, and Japan, making a comprehensive biography difficult. He currently exhibits permanently at La Galería Arcadia in Madrid.

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

Torner’s works have been exhibited in numerous 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 most important exhibitions of the Catalan artist:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.

Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.

Sociéte des Artiste Independants. Paris.

Grand Palais. Paris.

Dan Art, Béziers-France.

Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.

Lions Club. Chartres Doyen - France.

Guest of honor at the exhibition of Cercle Español. Dreux - France.

Salon d’Automne. Clermont Ferrand - France.

Grand Prix la Femme et l’Imanonaire Jeanne Gatineau. Paris.

Sala Gavina. Palamós - Girona.

Sala Clará, Olot-Barcelona.

Espai cultural Francolí-Barcelona.

Galerie Boutique. Paris, France.

La Galerie de l’Hotel Meridien. 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 Náutico de Sanxenxo. Pontevedra.

Picassomio.com Madrid.

Galeries d’Art Christian Dazy. Dijon-Megeve-France.

Exhibition Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. Madrid.

Sala Constanti Art, Reus. Christmas Collective 2009-Tarragona.

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