Miquel Barceló

Private Collection
Sale: Christie's, London, Contemporary Art, 28 June 1990, Lot 529
Galería Jorge Albero, Madrid
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly deeper and richer, and the depicted canvas tends more towards a bright yellow in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is evidence of wear to all four extreme corner tips. Further inspection reveals small paint losses in isolated places, the majority of which are likely part of the artist's working process. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Barceló’s masterful vision of the artist in his studio retains the raw immediacy and violent energy of the moment of its composition. The figure of the painter hunches over the canvas, brush in hand, dominating the space of both canvases. The paint, applied in thick dynamic strokes carries an implied violence but also a sense of creativity; this is the artist as a primitive creator-god. In a typically Borgesian deceit, glimpsed in the background of the studio is another canvas with a similarly hunched figure scratched upon it; we are invited to imagine in this second canvas the beginning of an infinite progression of painters and canvases.

Le peintre vue de derrière is one of a number of self-portraits that Barceló produced during a crucial period in his early career. As his reputation grew following the success of his solo shows in Majorca he moved to Barcelona to work, mixing with a wide range of international artists. His artistic output shifted towards the figurative and he began working on a series of self-portraits that directly recalled the art historical tradition of depicting the artist in his studio. These self-portraits began in 1981 with what he described as the ‘animal self-portraits’ where the dogs that featured so widely elsewhere in his work were subsumed into a kind of painterly alter-ego reflected onto the canvas. The influence of these earlier works can be seen in the primitive, animalistic figure of the painter/creator who crouches unclothed over the canvas. Barceló described these portraits of the artist, "to me the most important thing...was not the fact that I was portraying myself with the painting on the floor – I used to paint that way -, but the fact that I was on all fours, assuming that animal condition" (the artist quoted in: Maria Hevia and Jaume Reus, ‘An Inner Logic: A talk with Miquel Barceló’, in: Exhibition Catalogue, Palma, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Toulouse, Les Abattoirs, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Barcelona, Arts Santa Mònica, Barceló before Barceló, 1973-82, pp. 310-11). In a further development of this, he depicted himself splashed liberally with his medium - inspired by Pollock, he had been experimenting with a technique of dripping paint onto his canvases - in the thick layers of paint that are built up over both canvases painter becomes painted in the most literal of senses.

Epitomising the central themes of these early self-portraits, Le peintre vue de derrière, is full of the bold enthusiasm and raw energy that characterises Barceló’s work of this period and marks the growing conviction of a young artist just realising the extent of his creative powers.