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

Framed dimensions: 84 cm high x 71 cm wide

Good condition

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BIOGRAPHY OF MIQUEL TORNER DE SEMIR.

Miquel Torner de Semir was born in 1938 in the Castles of Santa Pau, in La Garrotxa (Girona), as the last living person born in this emblematic building surrounded by volcanoes (currently he lives in Sant Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his vocation as a painter. A man of old Catalonia, cultured, he has always felt drawn to the Middle Ages, the Romanesque of the Pyrenees, and the primitive Gothic. The influence of Italian Renaissance art, especially painters of the Italian Quattrocento like 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 blend of old and new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have shaped him most is his knowledge of the Romanesque and the Gothic. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—luminous, beautiful in themselves and for themselves. A pupil of the mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what he considers most important, the discipline of drawing. Under Maestro 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 visited the Prado Museum and absorbed Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the meninas to his taste, with his own style, using bright 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 notice the use of collage by the artist, who inserts 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 in other Catalan cities and in Paris (Espace and Boutique galleries). His work began in a Mediterranean figurativism, later evolving into abstraction, to return to a figurative modern concept. He is regarded, ultimately, as one of the most important exponents of Mediterranean painting.

All these tendencies were not unfamiliar to him, since in Barcelona he had the opportunity to meet the Dau al Set group. In the Dau al Set school he encountered renowned artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, and 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, blended color with great vitality, which, together 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.

Classical and modern fuse in the brush of Miquel Torner de Semir. 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 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 Girona is influenced by the ancients, 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 concept, attempting to be a bridge 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 eras rendered with modern painting techniques. This distinguished 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, at first glance, it seems incredible that 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 notable Faubist accent, with an intense and expressive color palette, in contrast with the serenity and empty gaze of the faces that invite the viewer to delve into the setting and the artist’s thoughts. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has a style of his own 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, Barcelonan, member of the International Association of Art Critics, the prestigious Catalan painter Torner de Semir, in his extensive pictorial work, “is concerned with composition and color, generating creations especially elaborated, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted color palette is noticeable. He exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that represent a clear exercise of pictorial academicism in which he does not renounce a certain formal and technical innovation, all within an unmistakable personal plastic signature.”

The 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 paints the picture within the picture, and even attempts to place abstract interpretations and signs in his backgrounds. Thus he 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 unique style based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. His female figures have the paused forms of religious art and express the calm that art must obey in the works 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.: “Drawing, the fundamental, strong, precise, incisive stroke, establishes form, delineates spaces in the meditated compositions that Torner de Semir presents to us. And then comes the seeing differently, the imaginative, the dreams that connect with the reality he 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 and the figure. An interesting and attractive work that captivates the viewer and leads them along the path of the imaginative.”

Consistent with his primitivist vision, he has not worried much about social projection toward his teachers; these were sometimes unnamed. Although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan, making an exhaustive compilation of his résumé difficult. 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 shown 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, and more. Below are some of the artist’s most significant exhibitions:

Most significant exhibitions
Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona.
Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona.
Sociéte des Artiste Independants. Paris.
Grand Palais. Paris.
Dan Art, Béziers-France.
Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.
Lions Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Honorary guest 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."