Xavier Franquesa (Barcelona, 1947) graduated in Art History and has a PhD in Fine Arts. He is currently a Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona. A versatile artist with a long career, he started in the seventies exhibiting minimalist, aesthetic work where we could see his strong interest in the power of colour and formal composition. Later his work evolved toward a greater conceptualization and gestural tonality.

During the eighties the work of Xavier Franquesa began to shift to figuration and portraiture, with a predominant expressionism contrasting figure and ground.

In 1989 he participated in the IX International Istanbul Biennial. In 2000 the Centre d'Art Santa Monica in Barcelona showed an exhibition of this artist’s work, focusing on his production from the decade of the nineties.

Franquesa combines painting with teaching, and his work is in major collections such as the Fundació ‘la Caixa’ in Barcelona, the Museum of Vitoria and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.