BELTRAN BOFILL (1874 – 1961) One of the most creative figurative painters of today, Joan Beltrán Bofill was born near Barcelona, Spain in 1934 and has lived in Catalonia all his life. He studied at the Escuela Superior de Artes de San Jordi and then at the Escuela de Artes y Oficio Casa Lonja where several artists of the Catalan School, including Picasso, had also studied.
While based in Majorca during his military service, he met the great Catalan painter, Anglada Camarasa, who was an inspiration to him. He also came face to face with the Majorcan landscape which has since had such a significant influence on his work. One of the paintings of that period won a prize in the First Barcelona Press Exhibition and was purchased by The Barcelona Museum.
With a solid background in drawing, color theory, and composition, Bofill set out to pursue a career in art in 1972, and since then has devoted himself entirely to painting. His entire professional life has really been an exploration of the effect of light in Mediterranean culture. The idea of space and the use of filtered light, indeed, exemplify his work today. Moreover, he brings to his art a lifelong interest in classical figure painting as he champions the rebirth of beauty.
Majorca, where much of his painting is done, provides the idyllic conditions that he reflects so masterfully in his compositions. Travel, too, has played an important part in his development. The museums of Madrid enabled him to study Goya, Rubens, Bosch, Dürer and Botticelli, to mention a few of the masters that he admires. Visits to Paris and London further enlarged his knowledge of both past and present masters.
In viewing Bofill’s paintings, it is evident he is answering a challenge, fighting a duel with light. In his endeavors to give it shape and to make it vibrate on his canvas, he ungrudgingly lavishes all his faculties, all of his technical resources that he has acquired over the years.
Dating back to 1972, Bofill has had one-man exhibitions in Barcelona, Palma (Majorca), Valencia and Madrid. He was represented exclusively by Wally Findlay Galleries International in the United States, which presented his premiere US exhibition in New York.