Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa Barcelona 1871-Pollensa 1959

Emily & Henry Oliver, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, since the 1920s

Executed in 1925 during Anglada's first Mallorcan period (1914-36), the present work was inspired by the exotic trees of Mallorca's lush interior, recalling his larger earlier work of the same title (fig. 1).

Keen to seek a quieter life away from the avant-garde circles of Paris, Anglada decided to returned to his Spanish roots and settled in Port de Pollensa in 1914. Here he turned to landscape painting, developing a progressive and experimental rather than naturalistic style.

The fruits of Anglada's textural and chromatic experimentation are powerfully expressed in La Higuera, the mixtures of colours strongly applied together with the proliferating branches of the tree creating rhythmic patterns. Anglada was fascinated by fireworks and the patterns they described against the sky, and indeed here, the effusive crown, reaching for the sky, can be likened to a graceful pyrotechnic display.

Fig. 1, Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa, La Higuera, circa 1916-18, sold: Sotheby's London, 19 November 2001, lot 17