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Isidre Nonell i Monturiol, Catalan critical painter with the bourgeois society, was born in Barcelona in 1872, in the bosom of a relatively well-off family.
Although he was basically self-educated, he received lessons from the hand of
Josep Mirabent and of
Lluís Graner, and he was a pupil of
Escuela La Llotja de Barcelona (School The Llotja of Barcelona).
In the stage of youth, his paintings were happy and full of colours, inspired by the modernism and the impressionism. In this epoch he formed part, along with many other Catalan painters, of the Colla del safrà (Cuadrilla of the saffron), known as this name due to the tonalities that they used in their paintings. He was interested in the representations, in sad attitude, of alienated people or of low social class.
Between 1886 and 1900, he travelled on several occasions to Paris, where he exhibited his works, together with other artists, and he was influenced by the impressionism. In 1907, he achieved a retrospective exhibition in Barcelona, in which he introduced a new type of portraits: well dressed women in a much more sensual attitude.
From 1908 he collaborated with the weekly satirical paper Papitu and, in 1910, painted a series of 12 inns. Also he was a part of the group
Els quatre gats, along with
Pablo Picasso and
Santiago Rusiñol, amongst others.
He died in Barcelona in 1911, when he was only 38 years old, due to a typhoid fever.