Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Sueños superpuestos

Signed by the artist on the bottom

The work is well presented, nicely framed

Dimensions of the work: 90 cm high x 78 cm wide

Dimensions of the frame: 93 cm high x 81 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), being the last living person born in this emblematic building surrounded by volcanoes (now he lives 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. 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 portraits of women, including the one we feature. It is precisely this blend of old and 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 windows—luminous, beautiful in themselves and for themselves. A disciple of mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what is for him the most important thing: the discipline of drawing. With 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 would be immersed in Velázquez’s painting, opting to reproduce the meninas to his liking, with his own style, using bright colors such as pink and fluorescent violet that leave no doubt about the emphasis, modernity and charm of the artist. Furthermore, if you look closely, you can observe the artist’s use of collage technique, inserting 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 to hold solo exhibitions in Terrassa in 1968, later doing so in other Catalan cities and in Paris (Espace and Boutique galleries). His work began in a Mediterranean figuration, evolving then into abstraction, and 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 opportunity 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 bright and rich colors. His work can be defined in a single word: LIFE. Thus, the magnificent body of work by this Catalan painter is characterized by its rich, blended palette of great vivacity, which, combined with the various materials he uses as support, yields a result of high-quality chromatic expressionist painting with a pronounced personality, defining the artist as a master.

The classic and the new fuse within Miquel Torner de Semir’s brush. Time dissolves, vanishes. The dividing line between past and present is erased with his paintings, with his way of tracing on the canvas. Miquel achieves what very few before him have accomplished: to speak of the past with the voice of the present. His voice: his paintings. His method: passion. His achievement: his entire body of work.

The painter from Girona is influenced by the ancients—Giotto, the Italian Renaissance—and by the informal quest of abstract painters. All this is the starting point of his painting; he cares as much or more for craft as for concept, trying to be a bridge painter between past and present, but also open to everything new, to constant search. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient times, rendered with modern painting techniques. 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 may seem the work is 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 Fauvist accent, with an intense and expressive color palette, in contrast with the serenity and vacant stare 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 distinctive 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 rhythm in human actions.

According to Joan Lluís Montañé, a Barcelona native, 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, generative of elaborated creations, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is evident. It features figures, landscapes, and compositions that represent a clear exercise of pictorial classicism 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 the silhouettes of the main elements of each composition with strong, precise lines 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 relationship among the various forms of artistic expression that motivate him, and his plastic language is much richer and more attractive. He has a unique 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 that must guide the realizations of the spirit. The figure serves to demand order and rhythm in human actions; his painting is ethical. It communicates positive sensations easily to those who know his work."

For J. Llop S.: "Drawing, the fundamental, strong, precise, incisive line 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 described reality and dress it with a chromaticism that combines basic colors and soft tones. It is a personal style that reveals the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. An interesting and alluring work that captivates the viewer and leads him along the path of the imaginative."

Consistent with his vision of the primitives, he has not worried too much about his social impact on his masters; these were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan, making it difficult to compile an exhaustive curriculum. He currently exhibits permanently at La Galería Arcadia in Madrid.

In 2003 he was 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 Museo de la 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. Here, below, are some of the artist’s most important exhibitions:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.
Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.
Sociéte des Artiste Indpendants. Paris.
Grand Palais. Paris.
Dan Art, Béziers-France.
Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.
Lyons Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Honorary guest at the exhibition of Cercle Espanyol. Dreux - France.
Salon d’Automne. Clermont-Ferrand - France.
Grand Prix la Femme et l’Imagerie 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.
Ausstellungsraume der Mineralquelle Eptingen. 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-Megève-France.
Exhibition Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. Madrid.
Sala Constanti Art, Reus. Christmas Collective, 2009-Tarragona.