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Ramón Casas i Carbó, modernist Catalan painter who went on to posterity due to his work with signs, was born in Barcelona on 4 January 1866, in the bosom of a well-off family.
When only he was 11 years old he started studying art in the studio of Joan Vicens and, whist he was still an adolescent, he became the co-founder of the magazine L'Avenç.
In 1881, he moved to Paris to keep on studying art and, the following year, achieved his first exhibition in the Sala Parés of Barcelona. In 1883, he had a big opportunity to exhibit a self-portrait in the Élysée of Paris, with that he had an invitation to be a part of
Societé d'Artistes Françaises and, therefore, the possibility of exhibiting twice a year in Paris.
During the following years he lived on horseback between the French capital, Barcelona, Madrid and Granada, and kept on painting. In this epoch he knew
Santiago Rusiñol, with which he collaborated illustrating his writings in multiple occasions and mounted an exhibition in the
Sala Parés (1890), and also it started identifying with the incipient Catalan modernism.
The members of this new artistic movement began to frequent
Els Quatre Gats, bar financed by Casa and located in a building designed by
Josep Puig i Cadafalch, in which they held gatherings and exhibitions. The activity of the place had also his reflex in a homonym
literary magazine in which Casas collaborated of assiduous form.
In these times, he began in the world of the graphic design and started designing the signs that definitively launched him to success. Between them, the highlights are the one he created for
Els Quatre Gats and for Codorniu. In the following years his works showed themselves for the whole Europe and even in America and it turned into a famous portraitist.
During the last years of his life he travelled all over the world and he kept on achieving important exhibitions in Spain and France. He died on 29 February 1932 in Barcelona.
Where to find his works: Gothsland Gallery