{"id":16313,"date":"2019-05-16T12:05:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T12:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/?p=16313"},"modified":"2020-11-06T16:48:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T16:48:49","slug":"maria-sampere-and-francesc-pausas-in-the-museu-nacional-dart-de-catalunya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/maria-sampere-and-francesc-pausas-in-the-museu-nacional-dart-de-catalunya\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Sampere and Francesc Pausas in the Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
S\u00edlvia Lanceta<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

It is\nsurprising, or at least a little bit, that after the fascination caused by this\nfemale portrait, the fact is we know almost nothing about the author of this\npainting, Francesc Pausas i\nColl.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman\nof the portrait, who appears from within the darkness with a closed smile,\ndisturbing and with a challenging eyebrow, is Maria Sampere i Montseny, who, at\nthe same time, is the person who donated the work to the museum in 1946, at\nthat time being widow of the artist. In spite of being the emotional driver of\nthe painting, we know little about her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Francesc<\/a>
Francesc Pausas, Portrait of Maria Sampere, the painter\u2019s wife<\/a><\/em>, 1911<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After this portrait of 1911, Maria was drawn, painted, esteemed and loved by Pausas, as she said of him, until July 1944, when the author of the painting died. Pausas did not endure another day after the unexpected and abrupt death of his only son. His heart gave in<\/em> with so much pain. The right hand still took a few seconds to drop the pencil, which sketched the nakedness of a woman, by praising the slowness and the desire to learn always. The nude woman was sketched with a wide and open smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though we don\u2019t know the exact date of his death, some references suggest it was 19th July.  The same day, the same month, just eight years after his friend Apel\u00b7les Mestres<\/a>, who he portrayed in 1934, in homage to the eightieth anniversary of the<\/em> friend of children, of flowers and of birds<\/em>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francesc Pausas, perseverant artist<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pausas was and would always be a painter.  He painted to live, to work, to disconnect, to love, to forget, to listen\u2026 He was born with a pencil under his arm, in a Barcelona that was expanding and was being renewed from top to bottom, and from left to right.  On 21st<\/sup> April 1877.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before he was ten years old he was enrolled in the School of Fine Arts, prior to reaching the age of fifteen he was a student of Sorolla and when he was seventeen he presented An artist<\/em> in the 2nd<\/sup> General Exhibition of Fine Arts, organized by Barcelona City Council.  At that time, the young painter was already member of the Artistic Centre of Barcelona.  Shortly afterwards, he would also form part of Sant Lluc. In these entities, he would start his professional career alongside multifaceted artists such as Isidre Nonell, Llu\u00eds Graner, Ramon Casas, Enric Claras\u00f3, Santiago Rusi\u00f1ol, Enric Galwey, Pau Audouard, Llimona …to name just a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discretion and modesty, which nowadays are no longer listed on the stock market, always accompanied the life of Pausas.  Reflective, perseverant and artist, in all its meanings, Pausas developed friendships with eminent personalities, although little known. With his friend Ramon Vilar\u00f3, he kept up a relation of those which endure political discrepancies. With Miquel Llobet, confidences in Barcelona, in New York and, again, in Barcelona. And with Manuel Clausells, an activist of Catalan culture, he shared the same staircase, friendships and conversations while drawing The Clausells girls<\/em>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York period of Pausas: reputation and prestige<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But let\u2019s get back to 1911. Portrait of a woman<\/a> is exhibited in the National Academy of Design of New York, the city in which Pausas resided from 1906 until the decade of the 1920s. The review1 of the annual exhibition published in American Art News<\/a><\/em>  \u00ab a surprising work (…) in the boldness of the drawing, and in the life and action of the figure that should lead the artist to gaining a well-deserved reputation\u00bb. There is also evidence in an inscription on the back of the canvas where it states \u00abMiss. M. Sampere Montseny\/New York\/National Academy of Design\/-1911-\/F.Pausas\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Francesc<\/a>
Francesc Pausas and family, Havana, 1927<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And yes, Pausas had a good reputation, which translated into prestige and money, for more than twenty years, mainly in North America and Cuba. (The woman of the portrait,) Maria Sampere and Montseny (,) opened the door to the world of music for him, in New York. Emmy Destinn, Lucrezia Bori, Dinah Gilly, Tamaki Miura, Maria Gay … continue to sing opera on the canvases of Pausas. Celebrities from the world of politics and art in general, from the first quarter of the 20th century, were immortalized in the Pausas\u2019 oils. For sure, nowadays they are resting in private collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artistic production of Francesc Pausas<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The public can only enjoy three of them publicly exhibited. The Portrait of Thomas Ustick Walter<\/em> (1925), the architect of the US Capitol, in the same building in Washington. In the Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee (Wisconsin), one of the most charismatic works by Pausas, Brooklyn Galvanizing shop<\/em>. The most important museum dedicated to the world of work bought it for \u20ac40,000 in 2006. In Europe, the artistic recognition of Pausas can (only) be found in the Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, which, since 2014, has been exhibited as Portrait of Maria Sampere<\/em>, wife of the artist in the room dedicated to the “Bourgeois Portrait” from the permanent collection of Modern Art (Room 45).<\/p>\n\n\n\n