JOAQUIN VAYREDA VILA (Girona, 1843 - Olot, Girona, 1894)."Landscape with figures".Oil on canvas.

JOAQUIN VAYREDA VILA (Girona, 1843 - Olot, Girona, 1894).
"Landscape with figures".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Size: 26 x 41 cm; 43 x 58 cm (frame).
Founder of the landscape school of Olot, at the age of nine he began his studies under the guidance of Narcís Pascual, then director of the Olot School of Drawing. He moved to Barcelona around 1860 to study philosophy, and there he continued his artistic training in the studio of Ramón Martí Alsina. In 1865 he exhibited for the first time at the premises of the Society of Artists of Barcelona, and the following year he took part in an exhibition at the Sala Parés. In 1869 he founded the Centre Artístic-Cultural in Olot, which became a focal point of renewal and experimentation in the face of official academicism. In 1871 he travelled to Paris for the first time and came into contact with the Barbizon school and the first Impressionists. The outbreak of the Carlist War forced him to go into exile in France in 1872, where he remained for three years. On his return, he resumed the activities of the Artistic Centre, and Olot became a centre of attraction for Catalan painters, drawn by the paintings Vayreda exhibited in the Parés room. Works by Joaquín Vayreda are kept in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the MACBA in Barcelona, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Víctor Balaguer Museum in Barcelona, the Girona Art Museum and the Abbey of Montserrat.