Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Ecos del mar

Signed by the artist on the bottom

The work is presented framed

Dimensions of the artwork: 33 cm high x 41 cm wide

Dimensions of the frame: 56 cm high x 64 cm wide

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 construction surrounded by volcanoes (he currently lives in Sant Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his painterly facet. A man of old Catalonia, cultured, he has always felt drawn 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, like the one we have here. It is precisely this mix 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. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—luminous, 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. Under 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 absorb Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the meninas to his taste, with his own style, with vivid 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 observe the artist’s use of collage technique, embedding a piece of fabric, cardboard, or even a musical score.

In Paris, he begins his work as he himself calls it, “between the old and the new.” He began holding 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 figurativism, evolving then into abstraction, before returning to a figurative form of modern 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 encounters renown artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, or Tapiés. 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, cohesive color, full of vitality, which together with the various materials he uses as a support gives us the result of an expressive, high-quality chromatic painting with a marked personality, defining the artist as a master.

The classical and the new fuse in 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 sketching 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 Gerona 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, to constant search. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient times, captured with modern painting techniques. This distinguished Catalan painter has been capable of breaking the rules of time. So direct is Miquel Torner de Semir in defining lines and shapes that it sometimes seems incredible that the work is a two-dimensional canvas, at first glance appearing as if the painting is a sum of textures from a three-dimensional world.

Some of his works carry a notable faubiste accent, with an intense and expressive color palette, in contrast to the serenity and empty gaze of the faces that invite the observer to delve into the work’s surroundings and the artist’s thoughts. 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 paused 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, Barcelonese, 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, generators of creations especially elaborated, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is evident. It exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise of pictorial academicism in which it does not renounce a certain formal and technical innovation, all within an unmistakable personal plastic stamp.”

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 does the painting within the painting, and even tries to place abstract interpretations and signs in his backgrounds. This achieves a positive relationship among the diverse forms of artistic expression that motivate him, and his plastic language is much richer and more attractive. He has a personal style based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. The female figures have the paused forms of religious art and express the calm that should accompany the realizations of the spirit. The figure serves him 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, strong, precise, incisive stroke, establishes the form, delimites 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 it describes and dresses with a chromatic that combines basic colors with soft tones. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. Interesting and attractive work, which captures the observer 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 projection toward his teachers, who were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America and Japan, making a comprehensive cataloging of his CV difficult. He currently exhibits permanently at La Galerie 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 exhibition 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 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. Let us then look at some of the artist’s most significant exhibitions:

Most significant exhibitions
Friends of the Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.

Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.

Society of Independent Artists. Paris.

Grand Palais. Paris.

Dan Art, Béziers, France.

Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.

Lyons Club. Chartres Doyen - France.

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

Salon d’Automne. Clermont Ferrand - France.

Grand Prix la Femme et l’Imabonaise 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.

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 espacio contemporáneo. 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.

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.