Villefranche-sur-Mer: 1925–26
Key events and activities of the life and artistic path of Joaquín Torres-García (JTG) are summarized in this chronology, which encompasses his works, exhibitions, writings, and life events. Other aspects of his career, such as the lectures he gave in Montevideo after his return in 1934, as well as the activities of the Asociación de Arte Constructivo (AAC) and the Taller Torres-García (TTG) are documented in the 1992 exhibition catalogue, El Taller Torres-García: The School of the South and Its Legacy (UT Press).
Only select artworks, exhibitions, and writings by the artist are featured in this chronology. For more complete information, please browse the catalogue, exhibition, and literature sections of this catalogue raisonné.
The facts in the chronology have been gathered from a wide variety of sources and have been checked against the archives of the Museo Torres-García and those of Cecilia de Torres. There exist in the public sphere numerous inaccuracies that have been previously published; this chronology has sought to correct those errors.
1925
February: A fire destroys the warehouse on Wooster St. where the Aladdin Toy Company was located. The entire inventory is lost.
JTG sells his toys to Nouvelles Galleries Riviera, Bazar Populaire, and Bazar République in Nice.
December: The Metz & Co., Amsterdam, catalogue features JTG’s toys.
Works
Influenced by his Mediterranean surroundings, JTG returns to the classical style, painting easel frescoes.
1926
February: JTG visits Spanish writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928) in Menton in the South of France.
March: Art historian J. F. Ràfols writes the first illustrated monograph about the artist. It is published the following year as Joaquín Torres-García (Barcelona: Edicions Quatre Coses, 1927).
JTG corresponds with Spanish painter Pedro Daura (1896-1976), a friend of Logasa’s living in Paris, who helps JTG find a gallery in Paris. In May, Daura visits JTG in Villefranche.
In spite of the protests by influential artists and intellectuals, JTG’s Saló de Sant Jordi murals are covered with canvases by Catalan academic painters.
July 27-August 4: JTG visits Barcelona for the last time. He takes no action in connection with the covering over of his frescoes.
Works
JTG completes an ink and watercolor sketchbook of Villefranche-sur-Mer and draws first structures with symbols within each compartment, a further development of the drawings of the same idea from 1917.
About his classical-inspired painting, JTG writes that although he will always return to classicism, it isn’t what he is currently doing or what he wants to do, because such art can no longer reflect reality [JTG to Pere Corominas, December 26, 1926. Pilar García-Sedas, ed. Joaquím Torres-García: Epistolari català, 1909-1936 (Barcelona: Curial/Publicaciones de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 1997), 108].
Exhibitions
June: Solo exhibition, Galerie Dalmau, Barcelona.
June: First solo exhibition in Paris, at Galerie Fabre.
October: "Saló de Tardor" at the Sala Parés, Barcelona, Spain.
October 16–November 6: Group exhibition, “Exposició de Modernisme Pictoric Catalá confrontada amb una selecció d’obres d’artistes d’avantguarda extrangers” (Exhibition of Catalan Modernism Confronted by a Selection of Works by Foreign Artists), Galeries Dalmau, Barcelona.
Writings
“Torres-García parla de les pintures de la Diputació de Barcelona” (Torres-García talks about the paintings in Barcelona’s municipality). Revista de Catalunya 4, no. 20 (February 22): 212.
JTG sends a series of articles titled “El Saló de tardor D’Enguany” (Today’s fall salon) about the art scene in Paris to La Publicitat, November 13 and December 2, 21, 29, and 30.