JOAN PONÇ (Barcelona, 1927 - Saint-Paul, France, 1984). "Hallucinations II" 1947. Gouache on paper. With label of the Galería Dau al Set, Bcn, on the

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Sep 20, 2021

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  JOAN PONÇ (Barcelona, 1927 - Saint-Paul, France, 1984). "Hallucinations II" 1947. Gouache on paper. With label of the Galería Dau al Set, Bcn, on the back. Exhibition: "Joan Ponç: precursor 1946-47-48", Barcelona: Galeria Dau al Set, 1983. Sizes: 46 x 61 cm; 69 x 87 cm (frame). Joan Ponç was 20 years old when he produced this work. It was a time when the Dau al Set group was beginning to emerge, and the magazine of the same name would publish its first issue the following year. In the "Hallucinations" series, made up of works on paper in a variety of techniques (gouaches, gouaches, watercolours...), the artist shows himself to be genuinely visionary, and in it the influences of Joan Miró and primitivism converge. Mythological characters, phantasmagorical and delirious landscapes fill the whole composition, giving it a baroque aspect, mainly due to the great profusion of elements. In this composition made up of African characters and a proliferation of symbols of Miró's heritage, the magical element and shamanic fascination pulsate with their own personality. Joan Ponç's surrealist universe was forged in those years, unfolding in rich constellations where arcane symbolisms intertwined the animal and human kingdoms, the galactic and telluric elements. As the Catalan critic Sebastià Gasch wrote: "his painting opposes naturalism to give preference to conception over vision. To the observation of nature, Ponç prefers the pure effort of the lyrical imagination. And in possession of an abundant and copious imagination in excess, rich and fertile...". A painter and draughtsman, he trained in Barcelona, in the studio of Ramón Rogent and at the Academy of Plastic Arts with Ángel López-Obrero. After devoting himself to painting and drawing in anonymity, he held his first individual exhibition in 1946, at the Galería Arte in Bilbao, which was to be his definitive establishment on the national art scene. In 1948, together with Tharrats, Puig, Cuixart, Tàpies and Brossa, among others, he founded the avant-garde group Dau al Set. Selected by Eugenio D'Ors, he took part in the Salón de los Once in Madrid in 1951 and 1952. In 1952 he took part in the Hispano-American Biennial, and the following year he spent some time in Paris, where he met Joan Miró and managed to exhibit at the Musée de la Villa. On the latter's recommendation, Ponç gained access to Brazilian artistic circles, settling in São Paulo from 1953 to 1962. In 1954, the year of the dissolution of Dau al Set, he held an exhibition at the city's Museum of Modern Art, with such success that the organisation acquired all the works. In 1955 he founded the Taüll group with Marc Aleu, Modest Cuixart, Jaume Guinovart, Jaume Muxart, Mercadé, Tàpies and Tharrats. After returning to Catalonia due to illness, as a fully established artist he shows his work in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Bonn, Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva, Antibes and various Spanish cities. In 1965 he won the International Grand Prize for Drawing at the São Paulo Biennial. He is currently represented at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Universidad de São Paulo, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, the Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo in Vitoria, the Museo de L'Empordà and the Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
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