Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa Barcelona 1871-Pollensa 1959

Painted circa 1942, Primavera. Flores al aire libre is one of several flower still lifes Anglada painted while living in exile in Pougues-les-Eaux in France following the Spanish Civil War. Here, in the absence of the dramatic landscapes of Montserrat and Mallorca, he turned increasingly to still life painting, involving equally radical textural and chromatic experimentation. 

Many elements of Anglada's earlier landscapes are echoed in still lifes like Primavera. Flores al aire libre. In particular, the bouquet of flowers can be seen as a reinterpretation of his distinctive, almost abstract, trees with their effusive, tumbling branches. As in his landscapes, so in his still lifes Anglada was above all interested in the potential of his subjects to describe decorative patterns in colour and light. Here, the blossoms together form an iridescent fountain of light, their radiating form like that of a firework display.  

However, Anglada's still lifes may also have held a more personal meaning for the artist. Since leaving Paris in 1914, Anglada's paintings were for the most part firmly rooted in Spain's landscapes and people (see lots 167 & 203). His still lifes, by contrast, are curiously detached - the least Spanish of his paintings - providing perhaps a refuge from the horrors of the Civil War and a Spain whose fate he so deeply lamented. Here, the spring flowers can perhaps be seen as an expression of hope - that Spain might once again rise from the ashes.