One of the most representative Spanish painters of the first post-war avant-garde movements. At the age of 17 he began training in the studio of the painter Ramon Rogent, in parallel with his training at the Academy of Plastic Arts in Barcelona. At this time he met Joan Vinyals, an antique dealer who later became his first dealer. In 1948, together with the poet Joan Brossa, the painters Modest Cuixart and Antoni Tàpies and the philosopher Arnau Puig, he founded the magazine and created the group Dau al Set, an important Catalan avant-garde magazine.
His work is detailed and meticulous. He represents ghostly images that are at the same time painful and tortured, in which the subconscious is the protagonist. Surely influenced by his difficult childhood, since the lack of affection in his family environment was what marked his work. Also influenced by his friendship with Josep Vicenç Foix, Joan Brossa and Miró, his first paintings reflect a schematic primitivism in which he mixed anthropomorphic and vegetal figures that transport us to a dreamlike world. His art has been defined as grotesque, tortured, diabolical, carnivalesque, magical… But he always remained faithful and consistent with his style.
The Suñol Soler Collection preserves a single work by the artist entitled The Fly (1948). In 2017, the Suñol Foundation participated with the loan of this work in the exhibition entitled ‘Joan Ponç: Diàbolo’, organised by the Fundació Catalunya – La Pedrera. His work was also shown in collective exhibitions of the foundation such as ‘Veinte rostros y tres multituds’ (2021-2022) or ‘Coloquios’ (2009).
List of artworks
La mosca , 1948
La mosca , 1948
Twenty Faces and Three Crowds
In Three Acts
The third and final act goes into the great iconographic motive of art, the element that questions the chronologies and brings to this day the verisimilitude of the whole...
Dialogues
First part
An idea that ran right through the 20th century: confrontation implies both affinities and discrepancies with initially similar...
1915 – 1995
Col·lecció Josep Suñol
Owing to the number of works in the collection, the first show included a selection of the most representative pieces dating from 1915 to...
Joan Ponç. Diábolo
2017
Fundació Catalunya - La Pedrera, Barcelona / Musée d’Art Moderne de...
FACE(S)
A project by Susoespai
FACE(S) presents a selection of works done by the people participating in the workshops of Susoespai as part of the visits to the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds...
Rosa Romero: Mira-mira
Performance
At the end of the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds, the Fundació Suñol is organizing an artistic performance in collaboration with La Caldera les...
Per la cara!
Taller familiar
Amb motiu de l’exposició Vint rostres i tres multituds, el darrer acte del tríptic expositiu En tres actes, us proposem gaudir d'un taller per a tota la família on...
Guided tour
Walking with the River. Eva Lootz
We invite you to visit the exhibition Walking with the River by the artist Eva Lootz with the help of a member of the educational team of the Fundació...
Dialogue with Pol Guash and Valentín Romà
Online video
On the occasion of the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds, we invite the writer Pol Guasch to have a dialogue with the co-curator of the exhibition series In...
Guided tour with Valentín Roma to Twenty Faces and Three Crowds
On the occasion of the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds, the last chapter of the thryptic In Three Acts,we suggest you visit the exhibition with Valentín...
Guided tour to Twenty Faces and Three Crowds
Festa Major de Les Corts
Fundació Suñol organizes a visit to the exhibtion Twenty Faces and Three Crowds conducted by the fundation’s...
Les Escales
In 1976 Josep Suñol moved his residence to Les Escales, an address specially designed to house his growing collection of works of...
Related publications
