Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Menina

Signed by the artist on the bottom

The work is presented framed

Dimensions of the artwork: 73 cm high x 60 cm wide

Dimensions of the frame: 84 cm high x 71 cm wide

Good conservation status

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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 Garrotxa (Girona), the last living person born in this emblematic building surrounded by volcanoes (he currently lives in Sant Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his facet as a painter. A man of old Catalonia, cultivated, 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 female portraits by Torner de Semir, such as the one we feature. It is precisely that blend of 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. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—luminous, beautiful in themselves. A pupil of mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what he considers the most important thing: the discipline of drawing. With Master 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 would visit the Prado Museum and be imbued with Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce Las Meninas to his liking, in his own style, with vivid color tones such as pink and fluorescent violet that leave no doubt about the artist’s emphasis, modernity, and charm. Moreover, if one looks closely, one can find the use of collage technique by the artist, who decides to embed 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, evolving into abstraction, and then returning to a figurative 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 met 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, cohesive color palette of great vitality, which, together with the various materials he uses as support, gives us the result of an expressionist painting of high chromatic quality and pronounced 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 tracing on the canvas. Miquel achieves what very few have achieved before: to speak of the past with the voice of the present. His voice: his paintings. His method: passion. His achievement: all of his work.

The painter from Gerona is influenced by the old masters, Giotto, the Italian Renaissance, and the informal search of abstract painters. All of this is the starting point of his painting; he cares as much or more about craft as about concept, trying to be a bridge painter between past and present, but also open to everything new, to constant exploration. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient times, depicted with modern painting techniques. This eminent Catalan painter has been able to break time’s rules. So direct is Miquel Torner de Semir in defining lines and shapes that, at first glance, it is incredible the work is a two-dimensional canvas, appearing to the naked eye as 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 to the serenity and empty gaze of the faces which invites the viewer to delve into the surroundings of the work and the artist’s thinking. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has a distinct personal style based on the simplicity of realization within a 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 body of work, “is interested in composition and color, generating creations especially elaborated, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is evident. It shows figures, landscapes, and compositions that represent a clear exercise of pictorial academia in which it 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 paints within the painting itself, and even tries to place abstract interpretations and signs in the backgrounds. This 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 a personal style based on the simplicity of realization within a well-structured composition. His female figures have the paused 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. It communicates positive sensations easily to those who know his work.”

For J. Llop S.: “Drawing, the fundamental stroke, strong, precise, incisive, establishes the form, delimits 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 connect with the reality he describes and clothes with a chromaticism that combines basic colors, 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 viewer and leads him along the path of the imaginative.”

Consistent with his primitive vision, he has not worried much about his social projection towards his teachers, many of whom were unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan; it is difficult to make an exhaustive résumé of his curriculum. He currently exhibits permanently at La Galería Arcadia in Madrid.

In 2003 he was chosen by the Museum of the Royal Mint to have one of his works issued on a postage stamp and to participate in the XXV anniversary of the Spanish Constitution exhibition. Meanwhile, 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. Let us now look at some of the most important exhibitions of this Catalan artist:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.
Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.
Societé 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’Imabonai re 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. Suisse.
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 2009- Tarragona.