Ràfols-Casamada (Barcelona, 1923 - 2009)
Ràfols-Casamada (Barcelona, 1923 - 2009) combined writing with a broad and widely-renowned pictorial work. He exhibited for the first time in Barcelona in 1946 with the Catalan group Els Vuit, and after a start with a strong post-impressionist influence his paintings turned to abstraction, with a clear tendency towards the poetry of everyday objects.
In 1950 he obtained a scholarship from the French government and moved to Paris, where he lived until 1954. Soon after he began a regular pace of exhibitions in Barcelona and throughout Spain and abroad. In 1961 he made his first exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona.
In 1980 Ràfols-Casamada was awarded the Spanish National Visual Arts Prize, and in 2003 he won the National Visual Arts Award of Catalunya. Furthermore, in 1983 he was awarded the Catalan government Cross of Sant Jordi, while in 1991 he received the Legion of Honour from the French Government. He was an Honorary Academic Member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.
His work can be found in important collections worldwide, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona (MACBA), the Museum of Modern Art of Barcelona, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM), Valencia, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid and the Musée d' Art Moderne in Paris.