Street of the Terrissaires, La Geltrú
Mir i Trinxet, Joaquim
Barcelona, 1873 - 1940
Street of the Terrissaires, La Geltrú, c. 1922 (Carrer dels Terrissaires, La Geltrú)
Signed lower right: "J. Mir"
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.
Oil on canvas
49,5 x 39,5 cm
CTB.1999.47
Artwork history
-
Castellana Auctions, Barcelona, Lot 132, June 1999.
-
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.
-
-De Corot a Monet. Los orígenes de la pintura moderna en la Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Llorens Serra, Tomàs (ed.) [Exhib. Cat. Valencia, Museo del Siglo XIX]. Valencia, Generalitat Valenciana, 2000, p. 126. [Sheet by Francesc Fontbona].
-
-Allées et venues. Gauguin y cuatro siglos de caminos en el arte. Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra, 2018. p. 42-43 y 98. [Exhib. Cat.] [Sheet by Francesc Fontbona]
-
-Caminos de modernidad. 1860-1980. Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Centro Cultural Bancaja, Valencia [Exhib. Cat. Cur.: Moreno Molina, L.; Beltrán Alandete, M.]. Fundación Bancaja, Valencia, 2022. P. 124-125 [Sheet by Francesc Fontbona]
Expert report
One subject which particularly appealed to Mir was the view of a village street with a doorway towards in the background. He painted it in 1910 in l’Aleixar in the painting Carrer del Forn, and later in Alforja, with Escala del Cor and La Font del Bolcadó, and in Vilanova i la Geltrú with Campamar de Vilanova of 1921, as well as other paintings set in unidentified villages (1).
This example is a mature work by the artist, painted after he had moved on from his remarkable and absolutely original discoveries in colour which he developed while living in Mallorca, and also after his period in Carnp de Tarragona when he recovered from a mental illness. The style of this work is fresh, with a very clear palette, the result of Mir’s great mastery of pictorial technique which he had built up over the years in addition to his grasp of more profound artistic values.
The painting depicts a street in La Geltrú, part of the town of Vilanova i la Geltrú (2), where Mir moved in 1921 on his marriage with María Estalella. The history of the painting is unknown; a black and white photographic plate of the painting is in the Plasencia photographic archive in Barcelona (3), today part of the photographic library of the Instiut Amatller d’Art Hispánic in Barcelona.
Francesc Fontbona
———————————–
(1) Such as the Carrer del Corb, known from the photograph in Francesc Serra´s archive n. 6358-A.
(2) I would like to thank Rafael Pujol of the Gabinete de Presidencia de la Diputación de Barcelona for his active interest in locating the spot represented in Mir´s painting.
(3) With registration number 752.