Manolo Hugué

Barcelona, 1872 – Caldes de Montbui, 1945

Manuel Martínez Hugué, better known as Manolo Hugué, began his artistic training at the Llotja School of Fine Arts, at the Masriera i Campins foundry and in the studio of the sculptor Eusebi Arnau. 

Around 1900 he settled in Paris, where he remained for ten years. In Céret, starting in 1920, he met Juan Gris, Joaquim Sunyer and Picasso. The relationship with the dealer D. H. Kahnweiler opened the doors to the international market and avant-garde exhibitions. After the First World War, which he spent as a refugee in Barcelona, ​​he returned to Céret, where, between 1919 and 1927, he lived his period of greatest creative splendor.

His work is presented in several group exhibitions and some personal exhibitions, essentially in Paris and Barcelona, ​​also in New York, the last being that of the Tavet-Delacour Museum (Pontoise) in 1955. Manolo frequently sculpted and modeled maternities, funny figurines, primitive. He illustrated the poet Reverdy and created a few monumental works, among which “La Catalana” can be seen in one of the squares of Ceret.