Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Interior con figura

Signed by the artist on the bottom

The work is presented as is, unframed

Artwork measurements: 73 cm high x 60 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 (currently living in San Feliu de Guísols). This fact marks his painter’s side. A man of Old Catalonia, cultured, he has always been attracted 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, makes itself felt in many of Torner de Semir’s female portraits, including the one we have here. It is precisely this mix between the old and the new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have formed him most is the knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic art. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke the Gothic stained glass: luminous, beautiful in themselves and for themselves. A disciple of 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 Catalan Noucentisme. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Sant Jordi, 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 liking, with his own style, with vivid colors such as pink and fluorescente violet that leave no doubt about the highlight, modernity and charm of the artist. 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 began his work as he calls it “between the old and the new.” He started 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 later into abstraction, then returning to a figurative modern concept. He is regarded, ultimately, as one of the most important exponents of Mediterranean painting.

All these tendencies were not unknown to him, since in Barcelona he had the chance 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 bright, 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, impasto color with great liveliness, which, combined with the diverse materials he uses as support, gives us the result of high-quality chromatic expressionist painting with a pronounced personality, defining the artist as a master.

The classical and the new merge 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 sketching on the canvas. Miquel achieves what very few before him have: 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 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 searching. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient eras, expressed with modern painting techniques. This illustrious Catalan painter has been able to break with the rules of time. So direct is Miquel Torner de Semir in defining lines and shapes that it is sometimes incredible that the work is a two-dimensional canvas, at first glance appearing as if the painting is more 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 gaze of the faces that invite the observer to dive into the work’s environment and the artist’s thoughts. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has a distinct style based on the simplicity of execution 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 the order and rhythm of human actions.

According to Joan Lluís Montañé, from Barcelona, 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, generators of especially elaborated creations, where the imprint of determination and the contrasted color palette is evident. It exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise of pictorial academia in which he does not renounce a certain formal and technical innovation, all within a unmistakable personal plastic signature.”

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 and pure colors to express feelings. Whenever possible he paints within the painting, and even attempts to place interpretative signs and abstract symbols in his backgrounds. Thus he achieves a positive relationship among the different forms of artistic expression that motivate him, and his plastic language becomes much richer and more attractive. He has a personal style based on 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 obey the realizations of the spirit. 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.: “The drawing, the fundamental stroke, strong, precise, incisive, establishes the form, delineates 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 it describes and dresses with a chromaticism that merges basic colors and soft tones. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. An interesting and attractive work that traps the viewer and leads him along the path of the imaginative.”

Consistent with his view of the primitives, he has not paid much attention to his social projection toward his teachers; these were sometimes unnamed, and despite his works being in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, the Americas, and Japan. It is difficult to compile an exhaustive curriculum. 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 XXV anniversary of the Spanish Constitution exhibition. 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. Next, some of the most important exhibitions of the Catalan artist:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.
Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.
Société des Artistes 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 the Cercle Espanyol. 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’Hotel Meridien. Paris.
L’Atelier. Platja d’Aro.Girona.
Ausstellungsrume 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. Strasbourg. 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.