Antoni Pitxot (;

Figueres Figueres (, ; , es, Figueras, ) is the capital of the ''comarca'' of Alt Empordà, in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain. The town is the birthplace of artist Salvador Dalí, and houses the Teatre-Museu Gala Salvador Dalí, a large museu ...

Girona Girona (officially and in Catalan language, Catalan , Spanish: ''Gerona'' ) is a city in northern Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter River, Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 103,369 in ...

, January 5, 1934 – June 12, 2015) was a Spanish

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

painter and a longtime friend and collaborator of

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

. Pitxot was born into a family with many artists in its ranks, among them, his uncle

Ramon Pichot Ramon Pichot Gironès (; 1871 – 1 March 1925) was a Catalan and Spanish artist. He painted in an impressionist style. He was a good friend of Pablo Picasso and an early mentor to young Salvador Dalí. Dalí met Pichot in Cadaqués, Spain, w ...

. He began studying drawing at the age of thirteen, and he exhibited regularly in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

, Barcelona, and

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

in his twenties and thirties, winning many prizes, including the Gold Medal painting prize in Barcelona's La Punyalada competition in 1965. At the beginning of the 1960s, he was a close friend of the French painter

Maurice Boitel Maurice Boitel (July 31, 1919 – August 11, 2007) was a French painter. Artistic life Boitel belonged to the art movement called "La Jeune Peinture" ("Young Picture") of the School of Paris,The School of Paris (1945–1965) by Lydia Harambourg. ...

, who painted many pictures on the Pitxot family's property in

Cadaqués Cadaqués () is a town in the Alt Empordà ''comarca'', in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain. It is on a bay in the middle of the Cap de Creus peninsula, near Cap de Creus cape, on the Costa Brava of the Mediterranean. It is two-and-a-quar ...

, a small port town on the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

near the French border, that was also painted by

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

and

André Derain André Derain (, ; 10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. Biography Early years Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France, just outside Paris. I ...

. In 1966, Pitxot took up permanent residence in Cadaqués, where his family had owned a summer house since the end of the 19th century. He began to experiment with

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

: in particular, he became focused on anthropomorphic figures composed of the stones that lined the seashores near his home. Pitxot worked in a unique way: he would build sculptures from stones, and then paint those sculptures in oil. Much of Pixtot's work is concerned with allegory and myth, including the figure of

Mnemosyne In Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion, Mnemosyne (; grc, Μνημοσύνη, ) is the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses by her nephew Zeus. In the Greek tradition, Mnemosyne is one of the Titans, the twelve divine chil ...

, the mother of the nine

muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

s who personified memory, and a series of works about The Tempest. Pitxot's association with

began before his birth, because their families were acquainted. But Dalí became an early supporter of Antonio Pitxot's work, and eventually asked him to co-design the Dalí Theatre and Museum ('' Teatre-Museu Dalí'') in

, Spain. There is also a permanent exhibition of Pitxot's work on one floor of that museum. Pitxot and Dalí were nearly inseparable in the last years of Dalí's life: designing Dalí's museum, teaching art and exchanging ideas about their work. Pitxot was a protector of Dalí's legacy after his death: He was a member of the board of the Gala Salvador Dalí Foundation, and he has led, and sat on the board, of several other Dalí foundations. He became the museum's director after Dalí's death. Pitxot was a respected international Catalan artist in his own right. In the year 2000, he was appointed corresponding academician for Cadaqués of the

Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Saint George Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a c ...

. In the 2004, he received the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts from the King of Spain as a recognition for his work. In 2014 the City hall of Figueres (Girona) grants him the "Fulla de Figuera de Plata" and in 2015 was nominated "The Favorite Son of the Cadaqués city" (Girona) . Works are held in private collections and in various museums. His brothers grandson is the Spanish actor, singer and comedian

Bruno Oro Pichot Bruno may refer to: People and fictional characters *Bruno (name), including lists of people and fictional characters with either the given name or surname * Bruno, Duke of Saxony (died 880) * Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne, ...

. He died on June 12, 2015 at the age of 81.Antoni Pitxot
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pitxot, Antoni 1934 births 2015 deaths Spanish artists Painters from Catalonia People from Catalonia