19th-20th Century Spanish

A renowned artist from the Catalan art scene, Joaquim Mir began his training at the academy of Lluis Graner (1863-1929), where he studied while also working in the family business. At the academy, he met another young painter, Isidre Nonell (1873-1911). He later enrolled at the of Barcelona, where he devoted himself entirely to painting. At La Lonja he painted in the company of other artists, like Joaquim Sunyer (1874-1956), Ramon Pichot (1871-1925), Juli Vallmitjana (1873-1937) and Ricard Canals (1876-1931) and was also to coincide there, once again, with Isidre Nonell. Together with some of these artists he founded a group that would be known as Colla del Safrà (Saffron group) due to the prevalence of yellow and ochre hues in their paintings. The group was also connected with the Catalan avant-gardist artists gathered around Els Quatre Gats, although Mir was never affiliated to any specific avant-garde tendency.

Once he completed his training, his career was closely associated with the places he visited to paint his works. At the beginning of the century the painter spent a brief albeit crucial period in Mallorca. His landscape painting —a genre in which he would became an excellent exponent— of the coast of Mallorca was highly expressionistic, almost bordering on abstraction yet always grounded in an interpretation of nature and light.

In January 1905 he suffered an accident that led to a mental crisis which saw him spend two years at the Pere Mata institution in Reus, where he continued painting. The high point of his career, a period full of colour, came precisely from his time in Tarragona, in which the solo exhibition organised in 1909 by Miquel Utrillo (1862-1934) at the Faianç Català galleries was a pivotal moment.

In 1914, he moved to Mollet del Vallés. There his painting began to return to a brand of realism reminiscent of Santiago Rusiñol (1861-1931), playing with lights and shadows, but lending a major role to form. The result of that return to realism was the medal he obtained at the 1917 National Fine Arts Exposition.

Another turning point in his career was his marriage to Maria Estalella in 1921. The couple moved to her home town of Vilanova i la Geltrú, where they would live until the end of his life. From this base, he set out on a number of “painterly campaigns” to a variety of locations in search of new landscapes: Alforja, Montserrat, Andorra, Costa Brava, Miravet and Gualba. In this final period, his work was defined by an increasingly realistic painting although remaining true to his characteristically intense palette. In the final stage of his life, Mir exhibited internationally and took part at the Venice Biennale on two occasions, in 1932 and again in 1934. In 1930 he was granted a Gold Medal at the National Fine Arts Exposition.

Thematically, his painting was largely focused on landscape, mostly set in nature and in rural surroundings. Mir’s works may be found at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Colección Carmen Thyssen, Museu Nacional d´Art de Catalunya and Museu Picasso de Barcelona, among others.