Sun, Exile and Resilience, Ca 1938, a Love Letter to the Mediterranean, Fauve Landscape Oil on Canvas

The life of the Catalan artist Pedro (Pere) Creixams is a study in resilience. The man who would exhibit alongside André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Maurice de Vlaminck, Henri Matisse, and Amedeo Modigliani in the most prestigious Paris galleries came, as he asserted himself, "from the sidewalk, the Mediterranean sidewalk..."

Orphaned of his father in his teens and working odd jobs, Pedro developed a passion for the theatre. Having obtained a place at the Conservatory in Barcelona, he decided to move to Paris in 1916 to pursue his acting career.

In Montparnasse, he soon became part of the vibrant Parisian intellectual scene: he befriended the poet, art critic, and writer André Salmon; the Swiss writer Blaise Cendrars; Max Jacob; André Malraux; and the painter Amedeo Modigliani. Creixams began to study painting with the Fauve master Othon Friesz, and soon had his first successes, exhibiting at the Café Parnasse and on Avenue Montaigne. He was courted by, and obtained contracts from, mythical gallerists such as Paul Guillaume and Pierre Loeb, who represented many artists who marked the 20th century, such as Braque, Klee, de Chirico, Derain, Dufy, Léger, Miró, Picasso, Soutine, and Man Ray.

His paintings also gained recognition in Catalonia. In Paris, he frequented fellow Catalan artists, like himself exiled or residing in the French capital, such as Joaquín Torres García and Joan Miró.

Creixams existed between two worlds: the cosmopolitan and competitive École de Paris and his deeply rooted Catalan identity. This dual nature infused his work. While the freedom of the Parisian avant-garde allowed his technique to flourish, the subject matter, light, and spirit of his homeland—the sunny Mediterranean to which he returned regularly—remained his muse.

Creixams's palette is a riot of pure, sun-drenched hues, applied with a vibrant energy that shows the joy and passion of his artist's eye.

This Fauve painting, with its glowing light and saturated colours, is a profound love letter to that Mediterranean from which he came. It encapsulates the warmth, the light, and the emotional resonance of the South, rendered through the revolutionary language of Parisian Modernism. A synthesis of Catalan heart and Parisian hand, it may also include a tinge of homesickness: in 1937, Creixams left Catalonia in the midst of the civil war and would not return until after an eleven-year exile. Our painting was probably painting during this period, in the late 1930s.

Measuring 46 x 55 cm for the canvas alone and signed at the lower right, the overall size in an elegant frame is 63 x 72 cm.

Nous parlons français, und wir sprechen auch Deutsch! Paintings may be viewed in Norwich and in Paris, as well as in London and Cambridge by appointment. Please contact us if you would like further details and images of an artwork.