35 - PEDRO MORENO MEYERHOFF (Barcelona, 1954).

PEDRO MORENO MEYERHOFF (Barcelona, 1954). “Hands,” 1987. Oil on panel. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. With an ArteUnido label on the back. Measurements: 36.5 x 45 cm; 41 x 49 cm (frame). Victoria Combalía has described Pedro Moreno Meyerhoff as the “Catalan Antonio López” due to his precise, meticulous, hyperrealistic technique, which is nonetheless not without poetry and expressiveness. The artist was largely self-taught and began painting as a form of therapy following a bout of depression. Finding himself unable to write, he decided to meticulously portray the world around him, from the tiniest insect to the faces of friends and acquaintances. In this way, the artist sought to extract the essence of reality in order to grasp it, make it his own, and understand it. In addition to this interest in realistic painting as a way of understanding the world and, at the same time, projecting himself into it, his admiration for some of the leading artists in art history also influenced his firm commitment to figurative painting. His fascination with artists such as the Renaissance painter Fra Angelico—whose delicate atmospheres, full of peace and spirituality, were both realistic and transcendent—and the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, who revolutionized in the fifteenth century, oil painting with his ability to translate the real world onto a flat surface, inspired the artist to delve deeper into the depiction of light, color, and atmosphere. Over the last few years of his career, the painter has gradually moved away from absolute realism to introduce a more personal, lyrical, and expressive nuance into his works, yet he has remained fascinated by the tangible world—by what is material and physical—and, at the same time, by its fleeting nature. Pedro Moreno-Meyerhoff has participated in group exhibitions at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Céret and the Museu d’Art de Cerdanyola, both in 2014; the Museu Marítim de Barcelona, in 2009; the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen, Germany, in 2002 and 2007; and the Banco de la República Art Museum in Bogotá, in 2006. Furthermore, his work is represented in collections such as those of the MACBA, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Murcia, the Fundació Vila Casas–Can Framis, and the Kunstmuseum in Wuppertal.