Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Interior con menina

Signed by the artist at the bottom

The work is presented unframed

Dimensions of the piece: 55 cm high x 46 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), as the last living person born in this emblematic building surrounded by volcanoes (currently he lives in San 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 Quattrocento painters like Fra Angelico or Raphael, can be felt in many of Torner de Semir’s female portraits, such as the one before us. It is precisely this blend between the old and the new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have shaped him most is his knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic art. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—luminous, beautiful in themselves and for themselves. A pupil of mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what is most important to him: the discipline of drawing. Under Maestro Marlet he encounters 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 soak up Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the meninas to his liking, with his own style, using vivid colors 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 his use of collage technique, embedding 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, and later in other Catalan cities and in Paris (Espace and Boutique galleries). His work began in a Mediterranean figuration, evolving into abstraction, and then returning to a figurative modern concept. He is ultimately regarded 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. At the Dau al Set school he meets renowned artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, and 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, thickly applied color that, combined with the various materials he uses as support, yields a result of 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 dilutes, 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 achieved: speaking 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 by 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 all that is new, to constant searching. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is the way he presents people, places, and situations from ancient eras, depicted 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 it is almost incredible that the work is a two-dimensional canvas, at first glance appearing to be 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 empty gaze of the faces that invites the viewer to delve into the environment of the work and the artist’s thoughts. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has his own distinctive style based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. The female figures have the restrained forms of religious art and express the calm of the spirit. The figure serves Semir to claim order and the rhythm of human action.

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 specially crafted creations where the imprint of determination and a contrasting color palette is noticeable. He exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise of pictorial academicism in which he does not renounce certain formal and technical innovation, all within an unmistakable personal plastic seal.”

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 makes the painting within the painting, and even tries to place interpretations and abstract signs in his backgrounds. This 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 paused forms of religious art and express the calm that must guide spiritual realizations. 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 stroke, strong, precise, incisive, establishes form, delineates spaces in the meditated compositions that Torner de Semir presents. And then comes the seeing in a different way, the imaginative, the dreams that connect with the reality he describes and dresses with a chromaticism that combines basic colors with soft tonalities. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of landscape, of the figure. An interesting and captivating work that traps the viewer and leads him along the path of imagination.”

Consistent with his vision of the primitives, he has not worried too much about his social projection toward his masters; they were sometimes unnamed and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan, making a comprehensive 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 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. Now, below are some of the artist’s most important exhibitions in Catalan painting:

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.
Lyons Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Honored 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’Hôtel Méridien. Paris.
L’Atelier. Platja d’Aro. Girona.
Ausstellungsraume 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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