Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Amor entre capas

Signed by the artist on the bottom

The work is presented unframed

Dimensions of the work: 55 cm high x 46 cm wide

Good preservation 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 (currently lives in Sant Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his painterly facet. 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 that 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. His figures, often outlined by a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass: luminous, beautiful in themselves and as such. A disciple of the mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what he considers most important—the discipline of drawing. With Master Marlet he becomes acquainted with Modernism and the Catalan Nouveau-century movement. 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 immerse himself in Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the meninas to his liking, with his own style, with bright colors 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 artist’s use of collage techniques, 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 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, opening later into abstraction, then returning to a figuration with a 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 had the chance to meet the group Dau al Set. In the Dau al Set school he encounters renown artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, or Tapiès. 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, cohesive color that, combined with the various materials used as support, yields high-quality chromatic expressionist painting with a strong personality, defining the artist as a master.

The classical and the new fuse in 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 laying out on the canvas. Miquel achieves what very few before him have achieved: speaking 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 the informal search of abstract painters. All this is the starting point of his painting; he cares as much or more for craft as for concept, aiming 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 the way he presents people, places, and situations from ancient times, depicted with modern painting techniques. This renowned Catalan painter has managed to break with the rules of time. So direct is Miquel Torner de Semir in defining lines and forms that, at first glance, it seems the work is a two-dimensional canvas, as if the painting were more a sum of textures from a three-dimensional world.

Some of his works have a prominent Fauvist accent, with an intense and expressive color palette, in contrast to the serenity and the vacant gaze of the faces that invite the viewer to delve into the surroundings of the work and the artist’s thinking. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has his own style based on the simplicity of realization within a very 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 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 pictorial work, “shows an interest in composition and color, generators of specially elaborated creations, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is evident. He features figures, landscapes, and compositions that constitute 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 interpretations and abstract signs in its background. Thus he 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 execution within a very well-structured composition. His female figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the calm 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 sensations easily to those who know his work."

According to J. Llop S.: “Drawing, the fundamental stroke, strong, precise, incisive, establishes the form, delimitates spaces in the meditated compositions that Torner de Semir presents to us. And then comes the seeing in a different way, the imaginative, dreams that connect with the reality that he describes and dresses with a chromatic range that combines basic colors and soft tones. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. An interesting and engaging work that traps the spectator and leads him along the path of the imaginative."

Consistent with his view of the primitive arts, he has not worried too much about social projection toward his masters, who were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan; it is hard to provide an exhaustive resume. 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 exhibition for 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. Let us look, below, at some of the artist’s most important exhibitions:

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.
Lions Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Guest of honor at the exhibition of the 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 Meridien. 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. 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.
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