JOAQUÍN TORRES GARCÍA (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1874 - 1949)."Classical Figures", 1915.Tempera on

JOAQUÍN TORRES GARCÍA (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1874 - 1949).
"Classical Figures", 1915.
Tempera on canvas.
Work published in the artist's online Catalogue Raisonné.
With the label of the Dau al Set gallery (Barcelona) on the back.
Provenance: Estate of the artist. Manolita Piña de Torres García, Montevideo. Private Collection. Dau al Set Gallery, Barcelona. Francesc Mestre Gallery, Barcelona.
Sizes: 47 x 101 cm; 70 x 120 cm (frame).
This painting is a valuable link in the dazzling evolution of Torres García's work since his first triumphs in the Noucentista avant-garde in Barcelona. In this landscape with figures, although the Noucentista imprint remains through the reinterpretation of classicism and the interest in situating the figures in a rural setting, the manner of resolving the bodies and applying the colours already indicate a radically different approach from that of the Catalan group. In the way of economising the forms and synthesising the line, as well as in the adaptation of the palette to a range of ochre and sienna tones, we can appreciate a certain Cezannian beat. All this presages his great contribution to the history of modern art as the creator of Constructivism. In this carefully composed landscape, with an olive tree compartmentalising the scene, the three bodies withdraw silently into themselves, enclosed in their own gestures and thoughts, while at the same time harmoniously moulding themselves to the scene. The houses have been described with the same eagerness to schematise the world, to reduce life to its essence.
After beginning his training as a self-taught artist, in 1890 Torres García decided to emigrate in order to train as a painter. He travelled to Europe with his family the following year, at the age of seventeen. In 1892 he settled in Barcelona and enrolled at the School of Fine Arts. There he came into contact with French impressionism, the main influence at that time on him and other famous pupils, such as Mir, Sunyer, Canals and Nonell. In 1901 he began to paint in fresco, attracted by the timeless spirit of the ancient works executed in this technique, and entered into a dynamic of group work in which painters, musicians, sculptors and poets collaborated. Around 1910 he began to introduce formal elements typical of Catalonia into his work, imbued with the spirit of vindication of the Catalan identity of the time. Several official commissions are related to this new approach, among which, as a turning point in his career, the mural decoration of the Salón de Sant Jordi at the headquarters of the Diputación Provincial de Barcelona (Barcelona Provincial Council) stands out. In 1920 he moved to New York and came into contact with artists of the stature of Max Weber, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Shortly afterwards he returned to Europe and settled in Paris, where he frequented the meetings of the group led by Mondrian, thus coming closer to abstraction and constructivism. In 1934 he finally decided to return to Montevideo, where he was received as a member of the European artistic elite. There he creates the Sociedad de las Artes del Uruguay, whose aim is to integrate all the arts and to act as a link between artists and the public. He came into contact with Uruguayan pre-Columbian and indigenous art, and this aesthetic, new to him, was to have a crucial influence on his thinking. His work is held in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Modern Art Museums of New York, San Francisco and Lille, the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, the Museo Torres García in Montevideo, the Fine Arts Museums of Houston, Philadelphia and Santa Barbara, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in São Paulo, the Hirshhorn and Art of the Americas Museums in Washington DC, the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo and the Los Angeles County Museum, among others.