Paloma
Isidre Nonell was one of the great Catalan painters of the second Catalan Modernista generation. He was a member of the Colla del Safrà (the Saffron Group) and a regular attender at the gatherings at Els Quatre Gats and went to Paris in 1897 with Ricard Canals. Far removed from the fashions of his time, Nonell created a strongly expressionistic language, with a very dark palette, arising from the attraction he felt for marginal and uprooted characters, especially the figures of Gypsy women. Despite initial rejection on the part of the conservative press, female figures like that of 'Paloma', less anguished than those of the early years and with more individualised features, brought him recognition from the public shortly before his premature death.
This work has been selected for the project «Partage Plus – Digitising and Enabling Art Nouveau for Europeana»
Santiago Espona Bequest, 1958