Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Sueños superpuestos

Signed by the artist at the bottom

The work is well presented framed

Dimensions of the artwork: 90 cm high x 78 cm wide

Frame dimensions: 93 cm high x 81 cm wide

Good state of conservation

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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), 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, cultured, he has always been attracted by 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 Angélico or Raphael, can be felt in many portraits by Torner de Semir, including the one we have here. It is precisely that blend between the old and the new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have shaped him most is the knowledge of the Romanesque and the Gothic. His figures, often outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—luminous, beautiful in themselves. A disciple of muralist painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what is most important to him, the discipline of drawing. Under Master Marlet he encounters Modernism and the Catalan Noucentisme. He studied at the School of Fine Arts at Sant Jordi in Barcelona and at the San Fernando School in Madrid, where he visited the Prado Museum and absorbed Velázquez’ painting, choosing to reproduce the “Las Meninas” to his liking, with his own style, using vivid colors such as pink and phosphorescent violet that leave no doubt about the artist’s highlight, modernity and charm. Moreover, if you look closely, you can find the use by the artist of collage technique, embedding a piece of fabric, cardboard, or even a musical score.

In Paris, he begins his work as he himself 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 figurative style, evolving into abstraction, then returning to a modern figurative concept. He is considered, ultimately, one of the most important exponents of Mediterranean painting.

All these trends 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 renown artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, or Tapies. His painting is characterized by the use of bright and rich colors. His work can be defined in a single word: VIDA. Thus, the magnificent work of this Catalan painter is characterized by its rich and blended color, full of vivacity, which, together with the various materials used as support, gives 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 within 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 before him have achieved: 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 old masters, Giotto, 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 than concept, has tried to be a bridge painter 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 times, rendered 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 often 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 to the serenity and vacant look of the faces that invites the observer to delve into the environment of the work and the artist’s thought. However, Torner de Semir has his own style based on the simplicity of realization within a very well-structured composition. The female figures have the slow 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, Barcelonese, 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 specially elaborated creations, where the imprint of determination and a contrasted palette is noticeable. He exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise of pictorial academia in which he does not renounce certain formal and technical innovations, 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 and pure colors to express feelings. When possible, he makes the painting within the painting, and even tries to place abstract interpretations and signs in his backgrounds. Thus he achieves a positive relationship between the diverse forms of artistic expression that motivate him and his plastic language is much richer and more attractive. He has his own style based on the simplicity of realization within a very well-structured composition. His female figures have the slow forms of religious art and express the calm that must guide 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.: “The drawing, the fundamental, strong, precise, incisive stroke, establishes the form, delineates spaces in the meditated compositions that Torner de Semir presents to us. Then comes the seeing in a different way, the imaginative, the dreams that connect with the reality that he describes and dresses with a chromaticism that blends basic colors and soft tones. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. An interesting and captivating work, which traps the spectator and leads him along the path of the imaginative.”

Consistent with his vision of the primitives, he has not concerned himself too much with his 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, making a comprehensive summary of his résumé difficult. Currently he 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 exhibition of the Spanish Constitution. Meanwhile, the Museo de la Real Casa de la Moneda in Madrid 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. Below are 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 Indépendants. Paris.
Grand Palais. Paris.
Dan Art, Béziers-France.
Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg.
Lions Club. Chartres Doyen - France.
Guest of honor in the exhibition of the Cercle Espanyol. Dreux - France.
Salon d'Automne. Clermont Ferrant - France.
Grand Prix la Femme et l’Imabonaire Jeanne Gatineau. Paris.
Sala Gavina. Palamós - Girona.
Sala Clarà, Olot-Barcelona.
Espai cultural Francolí-Barcelona.
Galerie Boutique. Paris, France.
La Galerie de l'Hotel Méridien. Paris.
L'Atelier. Platja d'Aro.Girona.
Ausstellungsräume der Mineralquelle Eptigen. Schweiz.
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.Francia.
Galerie Campo u Campo. Bélgica.
Galerie B.C.S. Estrasburgo.Francia.
Haus Arnold. Frankfurt am Main.Alemania.
Haus Berlinghoff. Heidelberg.Alemania.
Naumilenium. Barcelona.
Lart century art. Barcelona.
Real Club Náutico de Sanxenxo. Pontevedra.
Picassomio.com Madrid.
Galeries d'Art Christian Dazy. Dijon-Megève-France.
Exposición Conmemorativa del 25 Aniversario de la Constitución Española. Madrid.
Sala Constanti Art, Reus. Colectiva de Navidad, 2009-Tarragona.