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Cayetano de Arquer Buigas (January 11th, 1932-September 13, 2012)
was a native of Cerdanyola del Vallés in the Province of Barcelona. He
was a Catalan impressionist painter especially known for capturing the
beauty, sensitivity and delicacy of women of his era through pastel, oil
and charcoal techniques. With an equal mastery, he explored portraiture,
figure studies, equestrian subjects, landscapes, scenes of daily life,
maternity, taverns and more.
STYLE
Arquer Buigas stands as perhaps one of the most emblematic inheritors
of 19th-century Catalan and French Impressionist style (seen in artists
such as Ramón Casas and Eduard Degás). With his elegant, restrained
color palette and compelling balance between composition and subject
choices, Buigas’s output has afforded him the status of a beloved,
enduring master.
The artistic integrity evinced in Arquer Buigas’ work is the result of an
innate talent for drawing and painting, a keen skill for eloquently
conveying beauty and elegance, and detailed study of other great
masters undertaken throughout his entire life. Much too might be
credited to his familial circumstances and the legacy of an artistic,
aristocratic household.Techniques
An expert draftsman, Arquer Buigas produced more with charcoal than
with graphite pencil in his professional life, but used the former as a tool
for study in his free time. He took advantage of every opportunity to
draw—often even on paper napkins—recording the emotion in a glance
or the an intriguing gesture. He would then offer these sketches or
portraits to his unsuspecting ‘models’ as a gift.
His charcoals display a lovely range of nuances born of an agile
technique, facility for drawing, and a gesture full of movement and skill.
The strength emanating from his depictions of maternity scenes or the
napes of women’s necks was immortalized already since his earliest
work, in some of his best-known lithographs.
Arquer Buigas’ oil paintings demonstrate a sure but fluent hand whose
smooth brush-strokes reveal few points of thickness. They seem to
enclose his canvases in movement and bestow a natural, lifelike quality
to complicated textures such as hair or fabric.
Recognized as one of the greatest pastellists of his time, Arquer Buigas
lent such visual strength to his pastels that one sometimes might
struggle to distinguish them from oil paintings. However, the
seamlessness of his glazing and shading between tones was the result
of an exquisite understanding of pastel mixing effects and his exacting
sensibility for capturing qualities of light that immediately transport us to
vivid environments and moments.
ORIGENS
Arquer Buigas was the paternal grandson of a prominent Barcelona
lawyer and industrialist who had once served as Gentleman-in-Waiting to
His Majesty Alphonso XII as well as president of the Liceo Opera House
Club (el Círculo del Liceo). His maternal grandfather was the architect of
Barcelona’s Colombus Monument. His mother, whose brother was the
designer of Montjuïc’s fountains and created the journal TBO, possessed
an excellent talent for drawing and was perhaps one of the strongest
artistic influences during the painter’s childhood. He grew up ensconced
in a creative and imaginative milieu in which art and aesthetics were
constantly discussed. Traveling between Madrid and at his paternal
grandparents’ summer home in Cerdanyola del Vallés (which would
become the set and inspiration for a large body of his output), Arquer
Buigas began to realize his first drawings and paintings.
PHOTOGRAPHY
In Madrid, Arquer Buigas encountered the soon-to-be celebrity
filmmaker Carlos Saura, with whom he discovered the world of
photography. He studied and practiced photography until becoming a
true professional, improving and even inventing devices for the
development of negatives. Photography became a passion for Arquer
Buigas through which he learned to observe and make decisions about
details related to painting, such as composition, framing and light. His
most prolific period finished with a stretch working in a photography
studio alongside the filmmaker Carlos Durán and editor Jorge Herralde
(Anagrama Press).
BEGINNINGS
At age 27, the artist began to channel all of his skill and newfound
knowledge into drawing and painting. Quite soon, he presented his first
exhibitions in Barcelona, and enjoyed a rather easy success at selling
works. His passion for feminine beauty soon brought him to a very
personal impressionist style focused on feminine sensuality. He was
soon acclaimed for his marvelous depictions of the napes of women’s
necks.
A prize-winner in various painting and drawing competitions, Buigas’
prominence arrived rapidly, surprising proprietors of distinguished
galleries such as Tramontán (of Luciano Vergara) and Alfonso Alcolea’s
Sala Nonell, where he would exhibit frequently.
SUCCESS
In May of 1983, Buigas was chosen to inaugurate Girona’s new gallery El
Claustre, with which he went on to collaborate for the next 25 years, and
where his exhibitions met with resounding success. This opening was
followed by exhibitions at Spain’s major galleries, including: Alcolea,
Ingres, Nonell, Sokoa, Van Dick, Anquin’s, Ceferino Franco and others.
He often sold entire collections even before opening day.
Arquer Buigas developed into a highly recognized painter, not just for his
‘napes’ and figure paintings, but also for his sweetness and modernized
vision of his maternity scenes, the precision with which he approached
equestrian subjects, and the emotion and sense of intimacy that
epitomize his depictions of everyday scenes. He also cultivated an
impressive reputation as a portraitist. As in the activity of Ramón Casas
in his day, Arquer Buigas’ prodigious body of portraitsincludes the
likenesses of fellow painters with whom he was close: Miguel Acevedo,
Josep Sala, Martínez Lozano, Sala Herrero, Estrada Vilarrasa, Josep
Cruañas, Ramón Vilanova, Manuel Mayoral, Aguilar Moré, Poch Romeu,
among others. He also profiled other persons of status in the artistic,
political and social realms, such as Trías Fargas, Marta Ferrusola,
Carmen Posadas, Ramón de Abadal, etc.
Once established as one of the best figurative painters in Spain and a
master of pastel, he grew reluctant to travel or interact with art dealers
and speculators. He turned down serious proposals to expand his
activity abroad, instead preferring the constant pursuit of perfection in
his own style. With this, we might recall the spirit of artists like Degás,
whose words Arquer Buigas often cited to explain the mystery of
painting: “To paint is easy, but when one knows something…things
change,” or, “Be distinguished but unknown.” The former quote was
written into the floor of his studios to remind him of the difference
between success and artistic inquiry. From that period onward, the
honesty and rigor with which Arquer Buigas approached painting
became an effort to which he untiringly devoted the rest of his life.
WORKS
Arquer Buigas was a painter with an impressive capacity for producing
work. Even if we disregard a number of pieces completed as a young
man that he later burned in the garden of his childhood home in
Cerdanyola, Arquer Buigas’s oeuvre boasts around 300 portraits, 3,000
pastels and charcoals, a similar number of oil paintings; as well as other
drawings and works of various techniques.
However, perhaps the most impressive aspect of Arquer Buigas
enormous output, however, is not its quantity but its quality, due to the
ceaseless search for perfection at the heart of each work, from his first
oil painting to the final portrait, finished just hours before his death.
CRÍTICAS
Emilio Romero “Ya” Madrid 1996.-“Este hombre lleva la posteridad
encima y es un impresionista romántico, pintor que conjuga amor,
belleza, nobleza y espiritualidad en su expresión, además de poseer
características de narración tales como, el descubrimiento y la
originalidad. Es un clásico o un eterno”
Carmen Posadas (Escritora)-“Solo un artista es capaz de retratar la
vida tal como es porque los otros, los aprendices de brujo, los aspirantes
a genio, los extravagantes profesionales, apenas alcanzan a bosquejarla
o falsificarla. Y mucha vida es lo que hay en la obra de Arquer Buigas.
Como decía Victor Hugo, “solo un artista puede reinventarse lo que ve
para que parezca conocido y a la vez nuevo”
Fernando Gutiérrez (crítico de arte) La Vanguardia-“La plena
madurez de un excelente maestro. El rigor y la serenidad parecen sentar
las bases de la motivación temática de toda la obra de Arquer Buigas.
No hay en ella otro énfasis que el de las esencias poéticas de su
contenido, tanto, sin duda, como el de su continente, énfasis sin
afectación, claro está, imposible por otra parte, en una sensibilidad
como la suya. Cada tema se recoge de una íntima luminosidad
expresiva, intimismo diáfano, de profunda humanidad. Es una pintura
que trasciende una fuerza tan delicada como poética, tan honda como
incisiva.
Francesc Galí (Crítico de arte) El Correo Catalán-Arquer Buigas,
extraordinario retratista que no expone con la frecuencia que su obra
merece, sabe dar a cada uno de sus temas la interpretación necesaria
para que a la verdad que repiten sumen la poesía de una atmósfera
hecha de luz y sombra, de aire y silencio.
Rafael Manzano (Crítico de arte) El Noticiero Universal-La obra de
Arquer Buigas, con esos soberbios desnudos de doradas carnaciones y
espléndidos pasteles, nos transporta a la atmósfera de la obra de
Degás.
Javier Rubio (Crítico de arte)1986-“Maravillosos carbones y pasteles
de Arquer Buigas, nombre consagrado del pastelismo actual”.
Estrada Vilarrasa (Pintor)
-Un hombre que puede pintar el aliento, esa atmósfera que vemos y que
sentimos a la vez mirando sus cuadros, ha de ser un verdadero artista.
Laura Pesquer (Crítico de arte) Revista Jano 1986.
-Arquer Buigas nos sitúa ante una obra que enlaza perfectamente con la
saga de los impresionistas franceses y con la de aquellos que fueron
paisanos suyos, de quienes se diría que ha recogido la antorcha
artística.
Premios
National Portrait Gallery Premio BP 2011 (finalista)
Décimo concurso Vil.la de Palamós
Premio dña. María Pujadas de Grau
Primer premio Galerías Tramontán Sep. 1975
Escola de dibuix i pintura a Cayetano de Arquer Buigas.
Ajt. Masíes de Voltregá. 2006VII
Concurso de Pintura Villa de Palamós (Dibujo)
Premio Domenech y Soler Cabot
Exposiciones individuales
Galerías Tramontan. Septiembre 1972
1971 Reial Club de Polo de Barcelona
1972 Galeries d’art Tramontan, Palamós
1982 Galeries dárt Tramontan, Palamós
1982 Riad, Capital of Arabia Saudita
1983 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
1983 Sala Nonell, Barcelona
1986 Galeria Alcolea, Madrid
1987 Sala Nonell, Barcelona
1987 Sala de arte Ingres, Madrid
1983 Inauguración de El Claustre Girona
1985 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
1988 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
1990 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
1993 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
1996 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
1999 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
2003 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
2006 Galeria El Claustre, Girona
2008 Galeria El Claustre, Girona – 25 anys
2008 Espai Enric Granados, Cerdanyola del Vallés
Exposiciones colectivas
1968 dibujos 1900/1968 estudio del pino
1974 Concurso de pintura Villa de Palamós 1966-1974 Galeries dárt
Tramontán
1978 Mestres contemporanis. Galeria parc, Escaldes (Andorra)
1983 Exposicio de dibuixants. Galeries d’art Tramontan Barcelona
1986 La importancia del dibujo Sala de arte Ingres, Madrid
1986/87 Exposició col.lectiva de nadal. Galeria El Claustre Girona
1988 Galeria d’art intel.lecte
1988/1989 exposicio col.lectiva de nadal sala d’art Gisbert Sabadell
1989/1990 exposició col.lectiva de nadal galeria El Claustre
1990 Sala d’art prim’art Badalona1990 Galeria Bertran diagonal,
Barcelona
1991 Galeria Putxet Barcelona1992 Saló de tardor Sala Rebull Reus
1996/97 Sala de arte Ingres Madrid
29 Muestras colectivas de Verano y 29 invierno - El Claustre Girona.
Links
http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/bp-portrait-award-2011/theexhibition/exhibitors/bp-exhibitor-10.phpç
Arquer Buigas Bibliography – Colección Ars Hodierna año 1994 – http://www.editorialausa.com/col03b.asp?id=9
English contact - Liz Jones Solano
lizjones@arquerbuigas.es
Spanish contact - Luis de Arquer
info@arquerbuigas.es
www.arquerbuigas.es
Avd. Catalunya 23
08290 Cerdanyola del Vallés
Barcelona - Spain