Ángeles Santos Torroella (7 November 1911 – 3 October 2013) was a

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 ...

Spanish

surrealist 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 ...

painter. Born in

Portbou Portbou () is a town in the Alt Empordà Comarques of Catalonia, county, in the Province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain. It has a population of people (). Portbou is located near the France, French France–Spain border, border in the Costa Brava r ...

, Catalonia, she was the sister of the poet and art critic

Rafael Santos Torroella Rafael Santos Torroella (1914, in Portbou – 2002, in Barcelona) was a Spanish art critic, translator and poet. Biography Brother of Àngels Santos Torroella, he wrote several books on Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, among ot ...

. She married the painter Emili Grau Sala. Her son is the painter :ca:Julià Grau i Santos. In 2003 she received the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts, awarded by the Ministry of Culture of Spain: and in 2005, the

Creu de Sant Jordi The Creu de Sant Jordi (, in English 'St George's Cross') is one of the highest civil distinctions awarded in Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, ...

, awarded by the Government of Catalonia.

Biography

In 1929 Santos Torroella presented her work ''Un Mundo (A World)'' at the Autumn Salon in Madrid. The next year she was given her own room at the exhibition. In 1931 she held a solo exhibit in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. In 1932, she participated in the Iberian Artists Collective in

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and Paris, and the next year was invited to the exhibit at the Carnegie Institute in

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(USA). In 1936, she exhibited at the Spanish Pavilion of the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. She exhibited in Barcelona for the first time in 1935, at Syra Galleries. In 1936, at the outbreak of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

, Santos Torroella and her husband fled Spain for France. She returned to Spain by herself in 1937. The couple reunited in 1962.

Work

Her early work ranges from expressionism to surrealism, though it later moved into

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

, primordially landscape and interiors. Her most renowned painting is a large-format oil called ''Un mundo'', representing a strange surreal planet, which she painted when she was 18 and is currently held at the

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Museo may refer to: * Museo, 2018 Mexican drama heist film *Museo (Naples Metro) Museo is a station on line 1 of the Naples Metro. It was opened on 5 April 2001 as the eastern terminus of the section of the line between Vanvitelli and Museo. ...

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 ...

Works in museums

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...

* :ca:Museu de l'Empordà,

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 ...

Death

Torroella died on 3 October 2013, at the age of 101.

References

External links

images of Ángeles Santos Torroella's work at The Museo Reina Sofía
1911 births 2013 deaths Painters from Catalonia Women artists from Catalonia Spanish centenarians Spanish women painters People from Alt Empordà 20th-century Spanish women artists Women centenarians {{Catalonia-artist-stub