VIRGILIO VALLMAJÓ

A self-taught painter born in Olot (Gerona). He soon moves to Barcelona, one of the most important artistic centers of the Peninsula, where he acquaints himself in situ with the trends of the Catalan and European art that had been taking shape from the very first germs of the vanguard (fauvism, cubism, futurism, expressionism...). The outbreak of the Spanish civil war catches him in Madrid. He returns immediately to Catalonia where he performs several propagandist works for the cause of the Republic, joins the FAI (Federation of the Iberian Anarchists) and fights on the front of Aragon, more precisely, in the battle of Belchite in Zaragoza (on the 24th of August 1937). In February 1937 he goes into exile to France. He manages to escape from the Argeles camp and settles in Paris. His wandering in the French capital, in his effort to efface a memory of the horrible experiences, changes him entirely. In spite of the scarceness of information about this period, so eventful and fruitful for Virgilio, we do know for sure about one of the most important milestones in his artistic career — the relationship with Picasso and his studio, which resulted in several portraits. In addition to the association with the circle of Picasso, he strikes up a close friendship with Jaime Sabartes, a poet, with whom he argues a lot on philosophical themes. It is most likely that his talks with the Spanish painter inspired the latter with a formal search for an analytical cubism that transformed, in brief, into an analysis of abstraction. In addition to this influence, he is deeply affected by the Russian and Italian vanguard and the individual lines ofMalevitch, and the

Paintings   Drawings

individual lines of Malevitch, Rauschenberg, Klein, etc. His first neocubist works were exposed in the Parisian Castelucho Gallery. They were part of a collective exhibition dedicated to war artists and styled The Exhibition of Artists of Free Spain.

The outbreak of the World War II and the aggravation of his disease (he suffered from tuberculosis picked up during the war) force him to move to a safer place. France has been divided into two areas, one being occupied by the nazis and the other, the southern region, remaining relatively free. That is where Virgilio settles down, in Toulouse, a region that will turn into one of the strongholds of the Spanish Resistance. He joins the fold of the exiled artists (Pablo Salen, Joaquin Vicens Gironella, Izquierdo Carvajal, Michel Battle, ...) who try to resume their artistry.

Virgilio is the neighbour of Manuel Camps-Vicens, captain of the republican side and fauvist painter, with whom he has long discussions about art. The meeting point for them is the Wilson square where they can continue their gathering concerning the future of painting. He travels around the Collioure and Vermeille coasts, among others, painting landscapes, which he will soon be able to exhibit in the hall of the newspaper Gazette des Tribunaux under the title Still Life and Mediterranean Landscapes.

Around 1945 his health gets worse. Added to this, economic difficulties and his passion for painting force him to work on any medium - tablecloths, sheets, boards, cartons etc. - and material. He is taken for a second time to Amélie-Les-Bains hospital (the first time was in Paris in the Montauban hospital where he met his future wife). He died at the young age of thirty, leaving more than a hundred works piled within the walls of a granary.  

Claudio Coello 6 28001 Madrid tel. (34) 91 435 0174 galeria@josedelamano.com