ARTISTS

JOAN BROTAT VILANOVA, 1920-1990 A painter born in Barcelona, he studied at the city’s School of Arts and Trades and the Ateneu Obrer. His work was first exhibited publicly at the Cycles of Experimental Art organised by Àngel Marsà in 1950. From that point on he held individual exhibitions in Barcelona and other major Spanish cities, most notably those held at the Mayo and Octubre Salons in Barcelona and those at the Once in Madrid under the auspices of Eugeni d’Ors. Before his first exhibition, Brotat cultivated a post-modernist painting style with conventional themes, but starting in 1949 his work began to take on a personal primitivist style alongside a sound and enthusiastic reinvention of popular views of Romanesque Catalan painting, and of devout Mozarabs with staring eyes who seem to be hallucinating. Despite his apparent ingenuity, the painter’s career would continue in line with emerging contemporary trends, in harmony with the aesthetic irrationality of “Dau al Set”, and including a brief period of informalism and experimentation with collages and gestural art.