Setdart Subastas S.L
Los 63
CARLES NADAL FARRERAS (Paris, 1917 - Sitges, Barcelona, 1998)."Female portrait", 1944.Oil on canvas.Signed and dated in the lower right corner.Work verified by Alejandro NadalMeasurements: 80 x 65 cm; 101 x 85 cm (frame).This is a work from an early period by Carles Nadal. In this interior scene, Nadal introduces us into the room of a young woman who turns around, adopting a casual attitude, as if she had been surprised by our intrusion. Nadal's was a painting with a synthetic stroke, paradoxically combining attentive description with a swift, energetic impulse. This can be seen in the liveliness of the girl's face, the faint flush of her cheeks and the brilliance of her pupils.The son of Santiago Nadal, a painter and decorator based in Paris, Carles Nadal has lived in Barcelona since childhood, where the family moved due to his father's illness. At the age of thirteen he began to work as an apprentice in a decorative painting workshop, and in 1936 he received a grant from Barcelona City Council to study at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts. At the outbreak of the Civil War he is recruited into the Republican army, with which he fights on the Aragon and Tremp fronts. At the beginning of 1939 he crossed the French border and was interned in the Saint Cyprien refugee camp, where he remained for several months. He managed to escape and cross the border again, but was arrested and imprisoned in Figueras. On parole he returned to Barcelona, where he continued his artistic career while simultaneously working as a decorator and studying Fine Arts. In 1941 he makes his debut in a group exhibition at the Dalmau gallery, receiving good reviews. He finished his studies with good marks, obtaining the recognition of teachers and professors, some of whom became friends and collaborators of the young Nadal. In fact, it was one of them, Luis Muntané, who enabled him to hold his first individual exhibition in 1944, at La Pinacoteca in Barcelona. Two years later he moved to Paris, again with a grant from the Barcelona City Council. There he worked and exhibited with the group Présence de l'Homme, as well as taking part in the Salons d'Automne. Later he attended the Paris School of Fine Arts, thanks to a grant from the French State. In 1948 he married Flore Joris and settled in Brussels, where he remained until the mid-1970s. In Belgium he discovered, as he himself repeatedly stated, light and colour. During these years he continued to show his work both in Spain and Belgium and in France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Nadal's painting is post-impressionist in character, intensely colourful, and is based on the search for chromatic force as the most direct means of communication. His awards include the Grand Prix de Spa, Belgium, and his appointment as a member of the Royal Academy of London. His works can be found at MACBA, the Spa Museum in Belgium and the Royal Museum in Brussels.
