RICARDO OPISSO I SALA (Tarragona, 1880 - Barcelona,... Lot 45

RICARDO OPISSO I SALA (Tarragona, 1880 - Barcelona, 1966). "Picasso and Nonell", 1899. Charcoal, conté and colored pencils on paper. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Certificate attached. With label of the David Cervelló Gallery in Barcelona on the back. Measurements: 30 x 23 cm; 54 x 48 cm (frame). A Picasso barely twenty years old and an Isidre Nonell around the same age have been portrayed in front of their beer mugs by Ricardo Opisso in this endearing drawing made in the mythical Barcelona café "Els Quatre gats", a meeting place for painters and writers initially linked to modernism. Ricardo Opisso was the great portraitist of those bohemian atmospheres that marked the era and left a mark on later art. Opisso was a painter, draftsman and cartoonist. In his youth he participated in Barcelona's modernist environment, and in fact in 1894 he began to work as an apprentice with Antoni Gaudí in the works of the Sagrada Familia. Two years later, backed by the architect, he became a member of the Círculo Artístico de Sant Lluc, with whom he would later exhibit at the Sala Parés. He was linked to the group Els Quatre Gats, along with Ramon Casas, Manuel Hugué, Isidre Nonell and Pablo Picasso, among others. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century he made a trip to Paris, where Picasso and Hugué were already there. Throughout his career Opisso worked as an illustrator in publications such as "Cu-cut!" and "L'Esquella de la Torratxa", signing drawings oriented to political satire, in a style close to Art Nouveau. In 1907 he took part in the Fine Arts Exhibition in Barcelona, and received a third class medal. Due to the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, Opisso abandoned political satire and his drawings approached the costumbrista theme, specializing in popular scenes. His works of this period are characterized by presenting motley crowds in popular Barcelona scenes. After having exhibited several times in succession at the Sala Parés, he held his first individual exhibition in 1935, at the Syra galleries in Barcelona. During the post-war period he continued to exhibit in various galleries in Barcelona, and reaped great success with both critics and the public. In 1953 he received the recognition of his hometown in the IV Art Fair of Tarragona. Most of his work is kept in the Opisso Museum in Barcelona, but it is also present in the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg. As for exhibitions, the one held at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in 2004, under the title "Catalan painting, from naturalism to noucentisme", in which his work "Carnival" was exhibited, stands out.