Pablo Gargallo

Maella, 1881 – Reus, 1934

Sculptor. At the age of seven he moved to Barcelona with his family. During the year 1895 he worked in a pottery workshop. Trained first in Eusebi Arnau’s workshop, and then in La Lonja, he frequented Els Quatre Gats. In 1903 he made his first trip to Paris, which was possible thanks to a scholarship; One of his first friends there was Max Jacob. In 1906, he celebrated his first Solo Show in the Sala Parés. He returned to the French capital in 1907, where he spent the first night in Picasso’s studio, and has the opportunity to contemplate Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a probable influence for his Little Mask with a Tuft. That same year he decorated the Teatro Bosque in Barcelona, ​​representing the man from Malaga in one of his bas-reliefs.

The most important part of his work from that period are his sculptures for two emblematic Barcelona buildings, both signed by Domènech i Montaner, the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (1906-1911) and the Palau de la Música Catalana (1908-1910). Between 1909 and 1915 he lived in Paris, and it is at this stage that the influence of Picasso is seen in his work, especially the masks. Between 1915 and 1923 he resided again in Barcelona, ​​where in 1916 he held singles at the Galeries Laietanes, and at the Sala Valentí. In 1918 he participated in the Group show Les Arts i els Artistes. Between 1920 and 1923 he was a professor at the Escuela Técnica de Oficios de Arte. In 1923 he settled permanently in Paris, beginning the great period of his sculpture, in which modernist echoes and cubist forms are intertwined, as is evident in his portraits. In 1929 his work appeared in the Pavilion of the Collected Artists at the Barcelona Exhibition, for whose Olympic Stadium he made four sculptures.

In 1934 he held Solo shows in Parés, at the Brummer Gallery in New York and at the Reading Center in Reus, where he died three days after the exhibition opened. During the year following his death, posthumous exhibitions took place in Barcelona and Madrid.