Josep de Togores i Llach

20th century Spanish

Josep de Togores holds a unique place in twentieth-century Spanish art history. Born into an aristocratic family in Barcelona, he was left deaf at the age of thirteen after contracting meningitis. The loss of hearing spurred his interest in literature and, above all, painting, and he soon began taking classes from renowned painters of the time like Joan Llaverías (1865–1938), Félix Mestres Borrell (1872–1933) and Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre (1887–1938). In 1910, when barely 17 years old, he exhibited El loco de Cerdanyola (The Madman of Cerdanyola) at Sala Parés in Barcelona, a painting awarded later that same year at the Exposition universelle et internationale de Bruxelles (Brussels International Exposition) and subsequently acquired by the Belgian government.

In 1913, he travelled to Paris, where he discovered the work of Paul Cézanne, which instantly captivated him. After the outbreak of the First World War, he returned to Barcelona, where he came into contact with Joaquim Sunyer (1874–1956), one of the leading exponents of Noucentisme
a term coined by Eugenio d’Ors to name a cultural movement which many scholars regard as the most interesting in Spanish twentieth century art. Its members were highly prepared intellectually, pro-European and appreciated the form, rejecting improvisation and embracing the notion of “a job well done.” They were also known for their eschewal of sentimentality, their quest for purity and extolling of the urban world, as opposed to the ruralism prevailing among the members of the Generation of ’98, and, in short, for their elitism and self-awareness of aesthetic, social and intellectual avant-gardism.
, an influential Catalan cultural movement of the time, as well as with several foreign avant-garde artists living in the city. Around 1914, he frequented the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc where he became friends with Joan Miró (1893–1983). Around this time his painting was evolving from Noucentisme
a term coined by Eugenio d’Ors to name a cultural movement which many scholars regard as the most interesting in Spanish twentieth century art. Its members were highly prepared intellectually, pro-European and appreciated the form, rejecting improvisation and embracing the notion of “a job well done.” They were also known for their eschewal of sentimentality, their quest for purity and extolling of the urban world, as opposed to the ruralism prevailing among the members of the Generation of ’98, and, in short, for their elitism and self-awareness of aesthetic, social and intellectual avant-gardism.

Classicism

to a style more inflected by

Cubism

. In 1916, he began a series of Cézanne-esque landscapes of the Catalan coast and works with human figures, which he exhibited at the La Publicidad gallery in 1917. The following year, he joined Agrupació Courbet, an art movement founded with the mission to revitalise Noucentisme
a term coined by Eugenio d’Ors to name a cultural movement which many scholars regard as the most interesting in Spanish twentieth century art. Its members were highly prepared intellectually, pro-European and appreciated the form, rejecting improvisation and embracing the notion of “a job well done.” They were also known for their eschewal of sentimentality, their quest for purity and extolling of the urban world, as opposed to the ruralism prevailing among the members of the Generation of ’98, and, in short, for their elitism and self-awareness of aesthetic, social and intellectual avant-gardism.
. Through his work and theoretical writings, he became a proponent of modernism and, together with Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso, is considered one of the foremost Spanish artists of the opening decade of the twentieth century.

Togores returned to Paris in 1919, where Eugenio d’Ors introduced him to Picasso, Gris and other members of the Montparnasse circle, including the artists Georges Braque, Chaim Soutine and Amedeo Modigliani, as well as the poets Pierre Reverdy and Max Jacob. The latter introduced him to Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a renowned dealer in impressionist, post-impressionist and cubist works, with whom Togores signed a contract that lasted from 1921 until 1931. Kahnweiler organised his first solo exhibition in 1922 at Galerie Simon in Paris, which proved highly successful, and others at Alfred Flechtheim’s various galleries in Germany, in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Munich. Franz Roh included Togores in his book Nach-expressionismus (Magischer Realismus): Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei (Post-expressionism: Magical Realism: Problems of the newest European painting) published in Leipzig in 1925. Togores became well established in the Central European art market.

His work was shown in prestigious exhibitions such as the Internationale Kunstausstellung Dresden (International Art Exhibition of Dresden) in 1926 and Der schöne Mensch in der neuen Kunst (The Beautiful Human in New Art), held in Darmstadt in 1929. At this time, his works began to be acquired by major collections and museums across Europe.

At the height of his career, Togores went through several creative crises that led him along diverse artistic directions while at once maintaining a distinctive personal style. And so, from the Noucentisme
a term coined by Eugenio d’Ors to name a cultural movement which many scholars regard as the most interesting in Spanish twentieth century art. Its members were highly prepared intellectually, pro-European and appreciated the form, rejecting improvisation and embracing the notion of “a job well done.” They were also known for their eschewal of sentimentality, their quest for purity and extolling of the urban world, as opposed to the ruralism prevailing among the members of the Generation of ’98, and, in short, for their elitism and self-awareness of aesthetic, social and intellectual avant-gardism.

Classicism

of his beginnings he evolved towards

Cubism

, which eventually gave way to a style more akin to New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit).

In 1928, his work underwent a radical shift when he began to explore surrealist psychic automatism. His compositions from this period had a notable originality but gained scant recognition and, as a result, Togores’s star began to fade.

By 1931, he abandoned his surrealist and abstract experiments, and returned definitively to figuration, distancing himself from his most innovative period. This was when Kahnweiler terminated their contract, after losing faith in Togores's new direction, coupled with the severe worldwide crisis affecting the art market at the time. Togores returned permanently to Barcelona and adopted his style to the conventional conservative realism of the Catalan art scene. Despite reneging on innovative avant-garde languages, he did create some memorable works in this style.

Many of his works were lost during the Second World War and his popularity waned. In 1950, he held one of his last exhibitions in Madrid, featuring religious themes. Josep de Togores died in a car accident in 1970.

For many years, Togores and his works were largely forgotten by the art world and the dealers who had once championed him. However, after the exhibition On Classic Ground, held at the Tate Gallery in London in 1990, he was restored to the place he had occupied in European painting in the 1920s. Four years later, El surrealismo en España (Surrealism in Spain), the exhibition organised by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, marked the definitive rediscovery of Togores, primarily associated with the avant-garde, thus vindicating his place within Spanish art history.

Josep De Togores i Llach