Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Interior con figura

Signed by the artist at the bottom

The work is presented as is, unframed

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

Good condition

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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 (nowadays he lives in San Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his painter’s vocation. A man of old Catalonia, cultured; he has always felt attracted to the Middle Ages, Romanesque of the Pyrenees, and primitive Gothic. The thread of Italian Renaissance art, especially painters of the Italian Quattrocento such as Fra Angélico or Raphael, can be felt in many of Torner de Semir’s female portraits, including the one we are examining. It is precisely this blend of the old and the new that lies at the origin of the originality of his work. What seems to have shaped him most is the knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic art. His figures, often outlined by a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass—luminous, beautiful in themselves and for themselves. A pupil of muralist and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what is most important to him: the discipline of drawing. With 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 visited the Prado Museum and imbibed Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the meninas to his liking, in his own style, with bright colors such as pink and phosphorescent violet that leave no doubt about the artist’s emphasis, modernity and charm. Moreover, if one looks closely, one 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 calls it “between the old and the new.” He began holding solo exhibitions in Terrassa in 1968, then in other Catalan cities and in Paris (galeries Espace and Boutique). His work began in a Mediterranean figurativism, evolving into abstraction, before returning to a modern figurative 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 Dau al Set group. In the Dau al Set school he meets renown artists such as Tharrats, Muxart or Tapiés. His painting is characterized by the use of bright 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 and thickly textured color, which, combined with the various materials used as support, yields a result of high-quality chromatic expressionist painting with a 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 before him have managed: to speak of the past with a 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 is as concerned with craft as with concept, striving to be a bridge painter between past and present, but also open to everything new, to constant search. An interesting contrast in Miquel’s work is how he presents people, places and situations from ancient times, 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, at first glance, it seems the work is a two-dimensional canvas, as if the painting were a sum of textures of 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 look of the faces that invites the viewer to delve into the surroundings of the work and the artist’s thoughts. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has a distinctive style based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. The female figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the serenity 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 color palette is noticeable. It features 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 seal.”

The 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 the picture within the picture, and even tries to place interpretations and abstract 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 a style of his own based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. The female figures have the calm 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. 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, the dreams that connect with the reality he describes and dresses with a chromatic that blends basic colors, 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 primitive art, he has not worried much about its social projection toward his masters; these were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America and Japan, making it difficult to compile an exhaustive curriculum. 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 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, Vigo? Pontevedra, Oviedo, etc. Now, some of his most important exhibitions follow:

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.

Honorary guest at the exhibition of the Cercle Español. Dreux - France.

Salon d’Automne. Clermont Ferrand - France.

Grand Prix la Femme et l’Imabonnaire 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.

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.

Galería Campo u Campo. Bélgica.

Galería 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.