Nudes - Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

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Nudes

Togores, Josep de

Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, 19/07/1893-Barcelona, 17/06/1970

Oil on canvas

73 x 54 cm

togores (bottom left hand corner)

1928

First third of the 20th century

94/47

Acquired in 1994

Following a few pictorial experiments such as we see in this work, Togores remained faithful to Catalan noucentisme, in other words, to a style of representational painting with overtones of classical timelessness that can also be traced in the work of Picasso and other artists of the same period, and that the painter Joaquin Sunyer had shaped at the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the art of the European avant-garde did briefly seduce him for a few years, particularly the automatic drawings produced by André Masson in the mid-1920s. Togores was fascinated by the principles of the subconscious, the automatism, the importance of chance and, in short, by the airs of freedom that were
rocking the foundations of European painting at the time.

Nudes belongs to a series of pictures painted by Togores between 1928 and 1930 during his brief Surrealist phase, after which he returned to figuration. The work portrays a group of individuals in different positions. These anthropomorphic references are arranged on an almost monochromatic surface by means of swift and improvised gestural brushstrokes that configure a peculiar form of handwriting. [S.A.]

Selected bibliography

  • Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 178.
  • Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 178.
  • De Picasso a Bacon : arte contemporáneo en las colecciones del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Segovia, Museo de Arte Contemporánea Esteban Vicente, 1999. pp. 76-77.
  • García de Carpi, Lucía. La pintura surrealista española, 1924-1936. Madrid, Istmo. p. 120, il. 27.
  • Ismos : arte de vanguardia, 1910-1936, en España [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, Galería Guillermo de Osma, 1993. pp. 61, 90..
  • El Surrealismo en España, 1924-1939 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1994. pp. 314, 367, n° cat. 183.
  • Pintura fruta : la figuración lírica española 1926-1932 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, Comunidad de Madrid, 1996. p. 170, sin n° cat.
  • Togores : clasicismo y renovación : obra de 1914 a 1931 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid ; Barcelona, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía ; Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, 1997. p. 37
  • Entre la figuración y la abstracción : arte contemporáneo en las colecciones del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Pamplona, Museo de Navarra, 1999. pp. 62-63.
  • Luis Buñuel : el ojo de la libertad [Cat. exp.]. Huesca, Diputación de Huesca, 1999. pp. 194, 226.
  • Luis Buñuel : el ojo de la libertad [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, Fundación ICO ; Amigos de la Residencia de Estudiantes, 2000. pp. 224, 342
  • Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 178.
  • Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 178.
  • Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 178.
  • Casamartina i Parassols, Josep. Josep de Togores. Madrid, Fundación Mapfre, 2008. p. 134.
  • Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. p. 178, n° cat. 126.
  • Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. p. 178, n° cat. 126.