72 - EUSTAQUI SEGRELLES DEL PILAR (Albaida, Valencia, 1936–2025).

EUSTAQUI SEGRELLES DEL PILAR (Albaida, Valencia, 1936–2025). “Malvarrosa Beach,” 2002. Oil on canvas. Signed in the lower left corner. Signed, dated, and titled on the back. Measurements: 65 x 81 cm; 102 x 119 cm (frame) Segrelles trained in Valencia at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts and the Vicente Barreira Academy. He began his career as an illustrator and draftsman, working for the publishers Maga, Bardon Press, Selecciones Ilustradas, and Bruguera between 1955 and 1972. His first major solo exhibition took place at the Círculo Mercantil in Onteniente in 1957. In 1967, he was selected by the National Fine Arts Association to exhibit in New York and Copenhagen, and in 1972 he received a scholarship from the Valencia City Council to complete his training at the Casa Velázquez in Madrid. The following year, he received a grant to paint in El Aaiún, then known as Spanish Sahara. Over the next few years, he held solo exhibitions at various venues in Valencia, Bilbao, Madrid, Zaragoza, Castellón, and Tarragona. Beginning in the 1970s, his international reputation began to grow, leading him to hold countless exhibitions in Spain, Portugal, France, the United States, Jordan, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere. Segrelles is a member of the Accademia Internazionale Greci-Marino in Italy, and throughout his career he has been awarded the First Prize for Open-Air Painting from the Valencia City Council (1964), the Medal for Artistic Merit from the Ministry of Information and Tourism (1970), the First Karman Prize in Seville (1973), the Prize from the Provincial Council of Barcelona (1976), and the Villa de Pego International Prize and Gold Medal (Alicante, 1976). Segrelles’ artistic style is characterized by the use of solid, crisp, vibrant colors with great expressive power. His distinctive palette is complemented by a deliberate and consistent play of light, faithful to the light of the Mediterranean and his homeland, Valencia. As an heir to the purest form of Mediterranean luminism, he speaks to us through his brushstrokes about the lives of fishermen along the Levantine coast, with great expressive ease and outstanding technique. Segrelles’s work is currently represented at the Castillo de Larrés Drawing Museum in Huesca.