Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa

Dr Ferrando, Mallorca (acquired from the artist in 1929)
Ana M. Boutroux; thence by descent
Acquired from the above by the present owner

S. Hutchinson Harris, The Art of Anglada - Camarasa, A Study in Modern Art, London, 1929, pl. XLI b, illustrated
Gabriel Fuster Mayans, Anglada Camarasa, Mallorca, 1958, illustrated
Francesc Fontbona & Francesc Miralles, Anglada Camarasa, p. 272, no. D72, catalogued & illustrated

Original canvas. There are no signs of retouching visible under ultraviolet light. Apart from some faint craquelure visible under close inspection, notably in the foliage in the upper left corner, overall this work is in very good original condition. The colours in the original are much brighter and more luminous than in the catalogue illustration. Held in a decorative Spanish-style gold-painted wood and plaster frame, with a black-painted edge.
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It is the wonder of the natural world that dominates Anglada-Camarasa's paintings of Mallorca. Moving there in 1914, he explored every aspect of the island's remarkable scenery  - its dramatic mountains, its breathtaking coastline, and the lush and verdant landscape of its interior. The beauty and power to be found on the island is expressed to the full in the present work. The gnarled trunks of the ancient olive trees sprouting with effulgent leaf cover from their upper branches flank the compostion, dominating the finca that nestles between them, and contrasting with the implacable rock face of the Serra de Tramontana that rises up in the background.

Anglada's exaggerated depiction of the olive trees, towering above the farm buildings, reflects not simply how ubiquitous they were on the island, but also represents their importance to the islanders and their well-being, their agrarian economy and as prized symbols of a pure and ancient past. The very life-blood of Mallorca - its pulsating heart - Anglada-Camarasa completed a series of compositions celebrating the fecundity of the trees and their centrality in the island's past in a series of compositions of the period (fig. 1), works that suggest in their grand simplicity the rugged values that he himself sought in coming to live there.

In fact, despite Anglada-Camarasa's love of tranquillity and the purity of life that he so relished on Mallorca, the 1920s was a period of intense international activity for him. Following a highly successful exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1924, a group of his most important works were exhibited in an exhibition that travelled to Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And the year that the present work was painted coincided with his first trip to the USA, when he was invited to serve on the selection jury at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. Described by The New York City newspaper as 'the greatest painter in Spain', on his arrival Anglada's sartorial elegance and good looks led him to being dubbed the 'Spanish Beau Brummel' by The Pittsburgh Sunday Post.