134 - RAMÓN BARNADAS FÁBREGAS (Olot, Girona, 1909 – Vic, Barcelona, 1981).

RAMÓN BARNADAS FÁBREGAS (Olot, Girona, 1909 – Vic, Barcelona, 1981). “Rural Landscape,” Planolas, 1959. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Measurements: 61 x 73.5 cm; 70.5 x 73 cm (frame). A precocious painter, he enrolled in the Olot School of Fine Arts at the age of ten and held his first solo exhibition in 1929 at the Galerías Layetanas in Barcelona. Just six years later, he was appointed professor at the School of Fine Arts in his hometown. He exhibited his work in Spain, Mexico, and Switzerland, and won first prizes at the National Exhibition in Madrid and the International Exhibition in Palamós, as well as the Estrada Foundation’s National Landscape Prize and the Ricardo Portabella Prize. With his sketchy style, Barnadas went beyond the lessons learned from Realism and Impressionism, becoming part of the evolutionary avant-garde of Catalonia at the time. In 2006, the Fontana d’Or Cultural Center in Girona hosted a retrospective exhibition dedicated to him, marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, and that same year another exhibition was dedicated to him, organized by Caixa de Girona. Between December 2008 and January 2009, the Les Voltes gallery in Olot presented a selection of his works to mark the centennial of his birth.