Isidro Nonell Barcelona 1873-1911

Madrid, Saskia, Nonell - Exposicion Centenario, 1973, no. 14 (illustrated in colour in the catalogue)
Madrid, Sala Nonell, Homenaje a Isidro Nonell, 1976, n.n., (illustrated in colour on the cover of the catalogue) 
Barcelona, Palau de la Virreina, Exposició Nonell, 1981, no. 67, as Dona (illustrated in the catalogue)

Enric Jardi, Nonell, Barcelona, 1969, p. 314, no. 160; p. 226, fig. 160, illustrated
Art Català, Barcelona, 1972, p. 77, illustrated
Nonell y Picasso, Gazeta del Arte, Año I - Número 4, Barcelona, 1973, p. 16, illustrated in colour
J. Selva, 'La pintura', in L'art català contemporani, Barcelona, 1976, p. 77, illustrated 
Enciclopedia Catalana, Barcelona, 1977, p. 574, (as Figura) illustrated in colour
La Vanguardia, 28 June 1981, illustrated in colour
Enric Jardi, Nonell, Barcelona, 1985, pp. 314 & 315, catalogued; p. 185, no. 229, catalogued and illustrated

Painted in 1909 when Nonell was at his most confident best, Mujer is a particularly elegant and poised depiction of one of the artist’s favourite muses, a model whom he painted regularly at this time (fig. 1).

As ever with Nonell, the relationship he presents in his work between himself, his subject and the viewer is enigmatic. Seen from above, with her head and shoulders foreshortened and her gaze cast downward, Nonell suggests the model’s servility.  Her natural beauty, however, is evident in the rich abundance of her hair, and the light that illuminates her delicate profile and the left side of her face. Her charm is further underscored in the red blush of the flowers attached to her bodice. Making no gesture, the figure’s attitude is extremely composed. And yet there is a transience to her beauty that is implicit. On the one hand a measured study, on the other hand the painting is also a moment glimpsed as the rapid dots and dashes of Nonell’s brush strokes suggest. Captured and isolated within the picture plain, her physical form circumscribed by the heavy dark line of paint that Nonell so often employed, the artist presents her as an object for contemplation, however fleeting.

One of a series of major oils that Nonell painted between 1908 and 1910, the works from this time bear witness to the full flowering of his painterly talents.  Although still mainly focusing on head studies, he no longer confined himself to the depiction of gypsies and outcasts that had defined his work heretofore (see lot 191).  The resultant oils proved to be the crescendo to the all too brief twenty years of his working life.  A year after the present work was painted Nonell received the acclaim that had thus far eluded him when, on the recommendation of Miquel Utrillo, Santiago Segura mounted a major retrospective of his oil paintings at the Galeries del Fayons Català. A commercial and critical success, no one could have imagined that this would be one of the closing events of Nonell’s career before his unexpected death the following year.

Fig. 1, Isidro Nonell, Inocencia, 1908, Private Collection