Miquel Torner de Semir (1938) - Rostro entre geometrías

Signed by the artist at the bottom and dated the year 1993 The work is presented very well framed Dimensions of the painting: 61 cm in height x 46 cm in width Frame dimensions: 83 cm in height x 69 cm in width The conservation state of the work is very good BIOGRAPHY OF MIQUEL TORNER DE SEMIR. Miquel Torner de Semir was born in 1938 in the castle of Santa Pau, in La Garrotxa (Girona), being the last living person born in this emblematic construction surrounded by volcanoes (currently he lives in San Feliu de Guíxols). This fact marks his painterly facet. A man of old Catalonia, cultured, he has always been drawn to 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 of Torner de Semir’s female portraits, including the one we have here. It is precisely this blend of old and new where the originality of his work lies. What seems to have shaped him most is the knowledge of Romanesque and Gothic. His figures, frequently outlined with a thick dark line, evoke Gothic stained glass: luminous, beautiful in themselves and for themselves. A disciple of the mural painter and engraver Ricard Marlet, he learns what he considers most important, the discipline of drawing. With Maestro Marlet he becomes acquainted with 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 would visit the Prado Museum and soak up Velázquez’s painting, choosing to reproduce the meninas to his liking, with his own style, with vivid color tones like pink and fluorescent violet that leave no doubt about the artist’s emphasis, modernity, and charm. Moreover, if you observe closely, you can notice the artist’s use 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 started in a Mediterranean figurativism, evolving then into abstraction, to return to a figuration of modern 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 chance to meet the group Dau al Set. In the Dau al Set school he encounters renowned artists such as Tharrats, Muxart, or Tapies. His painting is characterized by the use of vibrant, 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, thickly textured color with great vivacity, which together with the various materials he uses as support, gives us 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 dilutes, vanishes. 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 the voice of the present. His voice: his cuadros (works). His method: passion. His achievement: his entire oeuvre. The painter from Girona is influenced by the ancients, Giotto, the Italian Renaissance, and the informal search of abstract painters. All this is the starting point of his painting; craft concerns him as much or more than concept, he has attempted to be a bridge painter between past and present, but also open to everything new, to the constant search. An interesting contrast in Torner de Semir’s work is how he presents people, places, and situations from ancient eras rendered with modern painting techniques. This distinguished Catalan painter has managed to break with the rules of time. So direct is Miquel Torner de Semir in defining lines and shapes that, at first glance, the painting seems two-dimensional, as if the work were a sum of textures from a three-dimensional world. Some of his works have a strong Fauvist accent, with an intense and expressive color palette, in contrast with the serenity and blank gaze of the faces that invite the viewer to delve into the environment of the work and the artist’s thoughts. Nevertheless, Torner de Semir has his own personal style based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. The feminine figures have the calm forms of religious art and express the calm of the spirit. The figure serves Semir to claim order and the 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 especially elaborate creations, where the imprint of determination and the contrasted color palette is evident. He exhibits figures, landscapes, and compositions that imply a clear exercise of pictorial academicism in which he does not renounce a certain formal and technical innovation, all within a 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 paints the inner painting within the painting, and even tries to place in his backgrounds interpretations and abstract signs. This achieves a positive relationship between the various forms of artistic expression that motivate him and his plastic language is much richer and more attractive. He has a personal style based on the simplicity of execution within a very well-structured composition. His 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 sensations easily to those who know his work." For J. Llop S.: "The drawing, the fundamental, strong, precise, incisive stroke, establishes the form, defines 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 link with the reality that it describes and dresses with a chromaticism that fuses basic colors and soft tones. It is a personal style that discovers the other reality of the landscape, of the figure. An interesting and attractive work, which captivates the viewer and leads them along the path of the imaginative." Consistent with his vision of the primitives, he has not worried too much about his social projection toward his teachers, who were sometimes unnamed, and although his works are in many countries, he has exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan, making an exhaustive compilation of his CV difficult. He currently exhibits, permanently, at La Galería Arcadia in Madrid. In 2003 he is 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 exhibition for the XXV anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. Meanwhile, the Museo de la Real Casa de la Moneda in Madrid has 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. Let us see, below, some of the artist’s most important exhibitions in Catalan painting: Most significant exhibitions Amics de les Arts. Terrassa - Barcelona. Pinacoteca. Sabadell - Barcelona. Societé des Artist Independants. Paris. Grand Palais. Paris. Dan Art, Béziers-France. Galerie Espace. Paris - Beaubourg. Lyons Club. Chartres Doyen - France. Honored guest at the exhibition of Cercle Espanyol. Dreux - France. Salon d’Automne. Clermont-Ferrand - France. Grand Prix la Femme et l’Imamonaire Jeanne Gatineau. Paris. Sala Gavina. Palamós - Girona. Sala Clará, Olot-Barcelona. Espai cultural Francolí-Barcelona. Galerie Boutique. Paris, France. La Galerie de l’Hotel Meridien. Paris. L’Atelier. Platja d’Aro. Girona. Ausstellungsräume der Mineralquelle Eptigen. Switzerland. 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. France. Galería Campo u Campo. Belgium. Galería B.C.S. Estrasburgo. France. Haus Arnold. Frankfurt am Main. Germany. Haus Berlinghoff. Heidelberg. Germany. Naumilenium. Barcelona. Lart century art. Barcelona. Real Club Náutico de Sanxenxo. Pontevedra. Picassomio.com Madrid. Galeries d’Art Christian Dazy. Dijon-Megève-France. Exhibition commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. Madrid. Sala Constanti Art, Reus. Christmas Collective, 2009-Tarragona. #parisapartment

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