All of Xavier Valls, from A to Z. This is what the Diccionari Xavier Valls (Ònix) has proposed to fix in full color on white canvas (paper) the imprint and memory of this outstanding painter – father of Manuel Valls , former Prime Minister of France and former councilor of the Barcelona City Council–, born in the Horta neighborhood and member of the School of Paris, the year in which the centenary of his birth is celebrated. The book is a review of his artistic life, with brushstrokes about his personal life and has an encyclopedic structure, in the sense that the reader approaches this creator from the biographies of people -many of them also artists- who knew and treated him, the exhibitions in which he participated or the institutions with which he collaborated, all arranged alphabetically.
Thus, they appear from the Center d'Études Catalans, in Paris, or the Cercle Maillol, to the entry Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Letres (which was granted by the French government in 1979) or the biographies of Rafael Benet, José Bergamín, Joan Brossa, Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortázar, Óscar Domínguez, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and many others... including Youl Brinner, the actor, who appears in the book because he bought two paintings from him, one of which ended up in the hands of editor Carmen Balcells.
The turning point in his artistic career occurred when, thanks to a scholarship from the French Institute of Barcelona, in 1949 he traveled to Paris to seek fresh air and freedom that did not exist in Spain. He set up his workshop in a building overlooking the Notre Dame cathedral and there he met Luisa Galfetti, whom he married. But he did not stop traveling to Horta, where he owned a house with a garden, the ideal place to enjoy the summers. He worked with the Henriette Gomès gallery, recommended by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiller, where he held eight solo shows, culminating in other anthological shows at the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (1982) and the Museu d'Art Modern de Barcelona (1985). In 2013, the Vila Casa Foundation dedicated a new retrospective to him and in 2000 the Generalitat awarded him the Premi Nacional d'Arts Plàstiques.
Interested in cubism at the beginning, he evolved towards abstract art and later stood out for the precision of his lines, which is reflected in still lifes and figures, where the margins of things are present, but as if they did not want to disturb. Luisa and Xavier Valls, Glòria Bosch, Cristina Mendoza, Juliet Pomés, Giovanna and Manuel Valls, Albert Mercadé, Marilé Ruiz have participated in the writing of the book, which is presented today at 6:30 p.m. Prado and Josep Miquel García, who has had editing care.
