Maricel Museum pays tribute to the noucentista landscape of Joaquim Sunyer

The Maricel Museum puts on the red carpet to greet four works by Joaquim Sunyer, which are here as a courtesy from diverse collections on occasion of the centenary ofCala Forn(1917), one of its most emblematic oils that represents the full humanization of noucentista landscape. The facility is located in the Sala Sert of the Maricel Museum that has been been given the title ofNoucentista landscape in Sitges. One hundred years of ´Cala Forn´(1917-2017), by Joaquim Sunyer.

The installation dedicated to Joaquim Sunyer consists of four works by the artist himself: Cala Forn (1917), which is the oil  that motivated the initiative and that was handed over temporally by the National Art Museum of Catalonia; Pastoral (1910-11), also transferred by Casa - Arxiu Joan Maragall, Paisatge de Sitges (c. 1920), trabsferred by the National Art Museum of Catalonia and Paisatge de Miralpeix amb vistes a Pere Pau (Landscape views of Miralpeix with views over Pere Pau), transferred by Dolors Junyent courtesy Art Gallery.

Noucentista landscape in Sitges. One hundred years of Cala Forn (1917-2017) opened today, Thursday 25 May, attended by the Councilor of Culture, Rosa Tubau; the director of the National Art Museum of Catalonia, Pepe Serra, and the Director of Museums of Sitges, Vinyet Panyella. The exhibition is organized by the Museums of Sitges, in collaboration with the City Hall of Sitges, Barcelona Provincial Council, the Generalitat of Catalonia and the National Art Museum of Catalonia. The exhibition can be seen until October.

Cala Forn and the landscape by Sunyer

The exhibition represents the staging of the landscape of Sitges idealized by Joaquim Sunyer in the early twentieth century, concentrated in four paintings. With Cala Forn, Sunyer culminates the synthesis of classicism, idealism and humanization. It is a work that represents the fullness of the artist and the absolute humanization of the ideal landscape drawn by Noucentisme. The ideal landscape becomes human in a conciliatory synthesis that marks a turning point in the evolution of the artist where the treatment of the human figure reaches a high level of purification, simplicity and plausibility that become assimilated with the portrait, a way that Sunyer has not stopped practicing and that starts with more forece from this passage.

Sunyer's landscapes insist on a compositional idea of ​​the rural landscape without concessions to the topic of the most famous images. The choice of sites that were unknown so far as pictorial matter involves the plastic expansion of local geography, that the artist works with insistence. Places like the hollows of Picorb or the sights of Clot dels Frares, the Riera de Ribes and Miralpeix consolidates Sunyer's landscapes  throughout the twenties of the twentieth century.

At that time, the strength of the landscape dissolves itself and is replaced by another look, quite evident in the portraits, the nudes and family scenes within the common narrative of the New Objectivity.. From 1928 to 1938 becames "the head guide of Catalan painting."

The Sert Hall in the Maricel

The area chosen by the Museums of Sitges to accommodate the installation is not accidental: the Sert Hall of the Maricel Museum is composed by eight paintings by Josep Maria Sert made in 1916 on the occasion of the Great War allowing to frame Sunyer in his chronology, but in a radically different context. The Sert Hall once accomodated the exhibition Ramon Casas, a long yearned modernity, a spece to the Poètica de les multitud (Poetics of the crowds), which, among other works, there was an oil  dedicated to the Sortida de la processó de de Santa Maria del Mar (1896 MNAC).

Other works by Sunyer at the Museums of Sitges

The Maricel Museum has three oil paintings by Joaquim Sunyer, two of which belong to the Art Collection of the City of Sitges and Maricel Collection.. The collections of the Heritage Consortium of Sitges also added another Sunyer from Can Falç. The Maricel Museum currently has four works donated by the external collections.

Motherhood (1908), Maricel Museum (Art Collection of the City)

Amadeus (1923), Maricel Museum (Art Collection of the City)

Portrait of Montserrat Gorgas i Ferrer (1930), Museu Maricel (Maricel Fund)

Dona (Women) (1919), Can Falc (Funds of Can Falç de Mar, Reserva)

Les germanes Ribas (Ribas Sisters) (1913), Maricel Museum (MNAC Fund), now at the temporary exhibition of the Morera Museum in Llleida;

Les dues cotorres (The two parrots) (1917), Maricel Museum (MNAC deposit)

L'oriol  (The oriole) (1911), Maricel Museum (MNAC Deposits)

Retrat del poeta Trinitat Catasús (1916), Private collection. Temporary diposit Maricel Museum

Works on loan for the installation

Cala Forn (1917), Loan from the National Museum of Art of Catalonia

Pastoral (1911), Loan from Casa - Arxiu Joan Maragall (Government of Catalonia)

Landscape Sitges (Landscape of Sitges) (c. 1920), Deposit of the National Art Museum of Catalonia in the Maricel Museum

Paisatge de Miralpeix amb vistes a Pere Pau (s.d.), Loan Dolores Junyent Art Gallery