2012. Xavier Valls - Galería Fernandez Braso

Xavier Valls

Light of Paris

XAVIER VALLS

Light of Paris

Paintings of 1962 to the latest and unpublished dated in 2006

Next Thursday, April 12, at 19: 30 hours, will open the exhibition of Xavier Valls in the gallery Fernández-Braso (Villanueva,30) with the recent oil paintings painted until a few months before his death, which took place in Barcelona in September 2006, where he was born in 1923. Paintings are absolutely unprecedented that can be seen for the first time in this exhibition. The latter works will be complemented with other that are initiated in 1962, and synthesize their long maturity stage pictorial.

The show is titled “the Light of Paris,” because all the paintings are painted in the French capital. His study in Paris was as a refuge perched in front of the Seine. Xavier Valls was going on there from September to June of each year. A course in which he had just exhausted from work, concentration, delivery lonely, but always with the protective shadow of Luisa, his wife and life partner. Those nine months in Paris were essential in his life and in his work. Were devoted to painting, to his oils on canvas.

The summer months spent in Horta, now a district of Barcelona. These three months accounted for the expansion, contact with family and friends. Were the communication with the earth, with the landscape itself. In the months of Horta also devoted time to his work. But there isn't painted in oil. Summers were for the watercolors. In a small room of your home developed their magical watercolors, which reflected the instant fugitive. To Valls watercolor was not at all minor piece, but is additional to its particular and exquisite artistic sense.

All the work of Xavier Valls has a poetry in secret, with a depth of serenity, with a sense of taste for the objects and the fruits of the earth. His paintings have their personal vibrations. It costs a lot to think that these palpitations have stopped, but still etched into canvases and papers. Looking at his paintings, taking pleasure in the beating of your hand, we can perceive the trembling light of the gestures and the words muted by the death over five years ago.

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Biography

1923 Born on the 18th of September in Barcelona (Horta).

1936 Charles Collet, sculptor swiss who lived in Barcelona since 1923, is set in Horta. Will give you the first lessons of drawing Valls, and be your true master.

1937-38 He enrolled in the preparatory course of the “Escola Massana” (School of Arts and Crafts).

1939-40 Working with Jaume Busquets and learn various decorative techniques such as glass and mural painting.

1940-42 Worked as a draftsman with the jeweler Ramon Sunyer, one of the goldsmiths most well-known members of Noucentisme. Attend the classes of the Artistic Circle and is a member of the Promotion of the Decorative Arts.

1949 via the French Institute, the French Government granted him a be-

ca of a month, to go to Paris. He decides to stay in France, living first in the Spanish School of the City University of Paris, and later in the north of Paris, in Ecouen. During four years working in the house of a glassmaker where it helps to Fernand Léger in the making of stained-glass windows for the church of Audincourt.

Moves to an old house in the quai de L Hotel de Ville, where they set up his workshop and home. You know Julián Gállego, with which he began a deep and enriching friendship. He exhibited together with Ninon and Charles Collet in the Gallery Syra, Barcelona.
Collaborates with two drawings in the literary magazine “Laye”, whose first promoters were the brothers Ferrater.
Participates in the Salon des indépendants in Paris, and at the IV Hall of October in Barcelona. In the Sala Vayreda made his first monographic exhibition.
Participates in the exhibition “Young Painters in spain”, held at the College of Spain in Paris and won the first prize. One of the works participated in the III Bienal Hispanoamericana de Barcelona receives the award for best still life.

Second monographic exhibition in the Sala Vayreda of Barcelona.

1958 marries Luisangela Galfetti, which will become, from that moment, a key part of the life and work of the painter. Luisa, and later their children, will be almost the only models of the painter. The poet and diplomá-

tico Jaume Agelet charged with drawings that the artist will ink to illustrate the work “Fauna and Flora”, which will be published the following year in Lleida.

Exposed individually in the Gallery of Cittadella in Ascona (Switzerland).
Through the mediation of Henri Kahnweiler comes in contact with Henriette

Gomès, that will take care of your painting as you paint

Balthus.

Performed in Marcillac three stained-glass windows for the private chapel of Edmond Michelet (future minister of Culture). Born in Horta his son Manuel.
Born in Paris, his daughter Giovanna. First monographic exhibition on

Paris at the Galerie Henriette Gomès. Jean Cassou acquires the box

“Le Seine” Museum of Modern Art of Paris, of which he is a director.

1967 Second monographic exhibition at the Galerie Henriette Gomès. The Contemporary Art Center of Paris acquired the work “La Porte vitrée”.

1969 Third solo show at the Galerie Henriette Gomès.

1972 Are held two solo exhibitions at the Galerie Henriette Gomès (paintings in may, drawings and watercolors in November). The Musée Cantini in Marseille acquires one of their drawings. The French State will buy three drawings, a watercolor and oil painting.

1974 monographic Exhibition in the Gallery Theo de Madrid.

Monographic exhibition at the Galerie Henriette Gomès. The painting “Les Fermes” (1974) is selected by the I International festival of Plastic Arts of Lanzarote (Canary islands, spain) and acquired by the Museum in this city.
Monographic exhibition in the Gallery Sa Pleta Freda de Mallorca, directed by Miquel Servera.
Travel to Venice. He was named “Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des

Lettres” by the French Government. Get the award Cáceres Paint (Extremadura). Monographic exhibition Centre d'etudes Catalanes de Paris-Sorbonne, a catalogue with a preface by Vladimir Jankélévitch. In June exposed also at the Galerie Henriette Gomès and in October in the booth that represents this gallery at the FIAC.

Travel to Florence. She was awarded the “Prix Drouant in Paris, critics award, French, whose jury is chaired by the poet Max-Pol Fouchet.
The exhibition “Xavier Valls. Retrospective 1954-1980” is presented in the Musée Ingres in Montauban.
The Directorate General of Fine Arts, Archives and Libraries of the Minis ministry of Culture in Madrid, organized the exhibition “Xavier Valls” in the exhibition halls of the Subdirectorate General of fine Arts. This exhibition, the first official recognition of his work in Spain, brings together some 140 works. The catalog presents a detailed study of the professor and art critic Antonio Bonet Correa and texts of Antoni Marí, Alejo Carpentier, and Jaime del Valle-Inclán.
Monographic exhibition of drawings and watercolors at the Galerie Henriette Gomès.
The Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art of Madrid acquires the box “Pêches et Pichet” (1974).
Exhibits in the Gallery Henriette Gomès. He exhibited at the Museum of Art

Modern home town. This retrospective is organized by the Barcelona city Council, and by the director of the Museum, Cristina Mendoza. “Creu de Sant Jordi”: Generalitat of Catalonia.

Collaborates with the article “Hommage to Luis Fernández” in “Pink Cubic” number 1, poetry magazine published in Barcelona, by Alfonso Alegre. In November stay in New York.
Presents an exhibition on ASB Gallery in London.
Participates in the exhibition “Les Paysages dans l'art Contemporain”, which takes place at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is appointed “Officier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French Government.

1991 monographic Exhibition of paintings and watercolors in the booth that represents the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris in ARCH’91 of Madrid. Monographic exhibition in the Gallery, John Gray, of Madrid.

Monographic exhibition of paintings and watercolors at the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris. Madrid, December 29th: Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts.
June 23: delivery of the Gold Medal in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

“Plats d'artistes”: exhibition at the Fundació Tallers Josep Llorens Artigas, Gallifa. Lounge 16: National Museum of Anthropology (former M. E. A. C.), Madrid, spain.

March 20: Montpellier (Corum):”Art catalan contemporain”. Exhibition of paintings in the Gallery, John Gray, of Madrid.
Opening at the National Museum Reina Sofia Art Center of

the second part of the Permanent Collection, where they are exposed to three canvases of Xavier Valls. Performs seven illustrations (“stencils”) for the book “A la fontaine” by the poet Guillevic, edited by Nouveau Cercle Parisien du Livre, Paris.

Exhibition of watercolors in the Gallery, John Gray, of Madrid.
Monographic exhibition of paintings in the Gallery, John Gray, of Madrid. Monographic exhibition of paintings and watercolors in the Gallery Artur Ramon, Barcelona.
He is appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the

French government. National prize of Plastic Arts of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

Monographic exhibition of paintings and presentation of the book “Sport chando Xavier Valls”, in the gallery, Juan Gris.
Collective ARC in the galleries Claude Bernard in Paris and John Gray of Madrid. Collective Plural and Picture in the gallery, John Gray, of Madrid.
Look of the TWENTIETH century, collective in the Palacio Los Serrano, of Avila. We published the book meva capsa de Pandora (My Pandora's box. Memories of Xavier Valls), in Quaderns Crema, Barcelona. Exhibition of watercolors in the gallery, Juan Gris de Madrid. In this exhibition, the Reina Sofía Museum acquired two watercolors, being director Juan Manuel Bonet.
Monographic exhibition of paintings in the Gallery, John Gray, of Madrid.
Dies at his home in Horta on the 16th day of September. Day 27 of is named as a corresponding member in the Paris of the Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona.
Participates in the exhibition entitled Still learning. Latest works of leading figuresat the Museum of Contemporary Art Esteban Vicente (25 sept. the January 13, 2008). Also exposed in the exhibition entitled Transfigurationin the ministry of Culture and

Sports of the Community of Madrid (November 2007 to January 2008). And monographic exhibition of watercolors in the Gallery, John Gray, of Madrid.

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Xavier Valls

Biography

Video presentation

Catalog

Selection of Work

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