The work of Subirachs is one of the richest, definitive and most representative of the contemporary Catalan and Spanish art. It is recognised worldwide that his works have marked a step forwards in the modern times of his country. He is the pioneer of Avant Guard sculpture in Catalonia in the second half of the twentieth century.
Josep María Subirachs was born in Barcelona 11 March 1927.
Sculptor, designer and engraver. He worked as an apprentice in the studio of E.Monjo (1942-1947) and was a free student in the "Escola de Belles Arts" of Barcelona (1945), but Enric Casanovas (1947-48) was his authentic professor from whom he inherited a style of Mediterranean character inspired by Maillol.
At twenty-one years old he carried out his first solo exhibition (1948) at the Casa del Llibre of Barcelona. His stay in Paris (1951) and his later residence in Belgium (1954-1956) contributed to his professional development nad plural knowledge of the plastic arts of the second half of the 20th century.
In the search of his own personality, the first steps of the "Noucentista" or Mediterranean development in works such as Mediterrani (1949) and Claudia Chauchat (1950), gave place to an expressionism. For example, the artist showed his work Europe (1953) at the in the first Salons d'Octubre held in Barcelona (1949-1957) where Cuixart, Curós, Guinovart, Ponç, Ràfols Casamada, Tàpies and Tharrats among others, also participated. Very soon his work enters into a process of schematization and of deformation that will end in abstraction. From this time is Les Parques (The Fates -1956), or Forma 212 (1957) -of the entrance of the Llars Mundet gardens in Barcelona - and especially with Evocació Marinera ( Seascape Evocation 1958-1960) , placed right in the middle of the Barceloneta district, becoming the first abstract sculpture in a public thoroughfare in Barcelona. In these works Subirachs shows an inclination for his peculiar treatment of textures that is one of his favourite resources to create contrasts and expressiveness. In 1959 he receives the responsibility to sculpt the façade and doors of the Santuario de la Virgen del Camino in Leon, this great collection introduces a figurative parenthesis in his creative line. These sculptures in bronze, slender and schematic, already announce his later evolution towards a neofigurism in which he mixes figure and abstraction, positive and negative in an absolutely personal way. In this phase it deepens the dialectical between concave and convex, in works where the empty space acquires its own spaciousness in contrast to the mass. At this time it is necessary to mention the monument to Narcís Monturiol (1963) in Barcelona, first work situated in a public place conceived in the style of the "new figuration." The creations of Subirachs followed an enrichment process with new ideas and contributions. Starting from the fifties his creations obtained a considerable public recognition due to which he received important commissions such as the façade mural of the Town Hall of Barcelona (1969), Monument in México D.F (1968) , the monument to the Olympiads, in Lausanne (1983), the sculptural work on the Passion façade in the Gaudi's Temple of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (starting from the 1986), The Pillars of the Sky in Seoul (1987) and the monument to Francesc Macià (1991) placed in the Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona.
He has used all types of materials: terracotta, bronze, wood, iron, stone, asbestos cement, cast concrete, marble, and also glass, aluminium, ivory, steel, rope and, especially in his latest period, has combined pictorial fragments with sculpture. As an engraver he has cultivated etching, lithography, serigraphy, linoleum and drypoint . He has undertaken all manner of work from large group sculptures to medals and even utilitarian elements. He has imposed a new concept of sculpture in Catalonia and is one of the most original sculptors in the world, his work showing very few influences. What characterizes him is his great command of technique and precision of form. In his mature, sober, conceptual work , he has combined elements in tension, often mixing disparate materials, figures in negative, sections turned on a lathe, cornices, seriated sequences, classical elements such as caryatids, sphinxes, capitals, niches, mouldings, obelisks, hydrias, pyramids, balustrades with, at a conceptual level, a certain taste for contrasts, visual paradox, irony and eroticism. He has been the artist who has most consistently and effectively brought the new art to the street, as recovery of the past and future offer.
Extensive work expressed in various languages, from classicism of "Noucentism", through informalism to expressionism or of the abstraction to neofigurism, makes Subirachs one of the great creators of art of our time, and his art becomes a synthesis of the current artistic movements, in a complete and harmonic way.
OTHER TITLES
- First sculpture prize at the II "Salón del Jazz" of Barcelona (1953).
- Bronze medal to the II Biennal of Alexandria (1957).
- Great prize Sant Jordi of the Diputació de Barcelona (1958).
- Prize Julio González of the Cambra Barcelonesa d'Art (1958).
- First International Prize of drawing Ynglada-Guillot (1966).
- First International Prize Sant Martí d'Or (1971).
- Prize from the critic to the best exhibition in the year (1973).
- Prize from the critic to the best exhibition in the year (1974).
- Sparo Prize of l'Agrupació Catalana d'Entitats Artístiques (1988).
- Prize "Correo del Arte" to the best artist in sculpture, Madrid (1993).
- Medal of gold of Fondo Internacional de Pintura de Barcelona (1996).
- He has been named the "most important living catalan artist of the 20th century" according to La Vanguardia newspaper, Catalunya Ràdio and the Enciclopèdia Catalana (1997).