JOSE MARIA MALLOL SUAZO (Barcelona, 1910 - 1986).Female portrait.Oil on canvas.Signed in the

JOSÉ MARÍA MALLOL SUAZO (Barcelona, 1910 - 1986).
"Female portrait.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 72 x 53 cm; 90 x 71 cm (frame).
Born into a very religious family, Mallol Suazo trained at the La Lonja School in Barcelona, where he was a disciple of Félix Mestres and Ramón Calsina between 1929 and 1935. He was a draughtsman as well as a painter, and published humorous illustrations in "En Patufet", "Virolet" and "L'Esquitx", magazines with which he had been collaborating since his student years. A congenital deformity in his feet, which made it difficult for him to walk, prevented him from developing his landscape themes, as he was unable to move around to copy from life. He therefore turned to other themes, such as still life and portraiture. The first exhibition of his work was held at the Barcelona Contemporary Art Salon in 1936, months before the outbreak of the Civil War. That same year he was awarded a prize at the Barcelona Spring Exhibition. The war forced his family to disperse, but Mallol remained in Barcelona, where he devoted himself entirely to painting and in 1938 won the Nonell Prize for Painting, awarded by the Tardor gallery. In 1945 he became a member of the group of artists at the Sala Parés, a gallery where he met the collector Josep Omar Gelpi, who became his art dealer from then on. Considered one of the most promising young Catalan painters, in 1953 he took part in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Barcelona with a nude. Mallol Suazo is represented in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Museum of Valls, the Deu Font Museum in El Vendrell, the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona and the Abbey of Montserrat, as well as in important collections such as those of Caixa Terrassa, Caixa de Catalunya, Marta María Millet and Modest Rodríguez Cruells.