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Torres Garcia

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Joaquín Torres García (Montevideo 1874 - 1949) was the son of María García Pérez and Joaquín Torres Fradera. His father, originally from Mataró, Catalonia, had been raised in a family of nautical rope makers, while his mother was Uruguayan.

Due to financial difficulties, Joaquín Torres Fradera decided to move his family to Mataró in 1891 and later to Barcelona. There, Torres García took painting lessons with Josep Vinardell. He created his first oil painting in 1891 in Mataró at the age of 17.

In 1894, he enrolled in the Official School of Fine Arts of Barcelona and also attended the Baixas Academy. Three years later, he exhibited his works in an exhibition hall of the newspaper La Vanguardia and participated in a collective exhibition as a member of the Artistic Circle of San Lucas, to which he had recently joined. Barcelona was a place of great inspiration and influences for him. He formed friendships with important painters and sculptors of the time, such as Manuel Hugué, Ramón Pichot, Oleguer and Sebastià Junyent, Joaquim Sunyer, Joan and Juli González, Planella, and Pablo Picasso, as well as musicians like Antoni Ribera.

In Barcelona, he met Antonio Gaudí and participated in the Catalan noucentista movement. Together with Gaudí, he designed the stained glass windows of the Spanish Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca and part of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

During this period, Torres García published several works as an illustrator under the pseudonym Quim Torras in various newspapers, including La Vanguardia, Iris, La Saeta, and Barcelona Cómica.

In 1904, he held an exhibition with Iu Pascual at the Artistic Circle of Sant Lluc. That same year, he began writing about art, a practice he would continue throughout his life, with an article in the magazine Universitat Catalana.

The following years were dedicated to exhibiting his works. In 1911, he participated in the International Art Exhibition of Barcelona. His first book, "Notes sobre art," was published in Catalan in 1913.

Through Eugeni d’Ors, he met Enric Prat de la Riba, the president of the Diputació de Barcelona, in June 1911, who commissioned several works from him. The most notable was the frescoes in the Saló de Sant Jordi in the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya, which Torres García worked on between 1913 and 1914.

Torres García left the city of Barcelona and moved to the outskirts, about 20 kilometers away, to the town of Terrassa. There, he built a house, which he designed and decorated with murals, calling it "Mon Repòs" (My Rest).

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