The Catalan artist Xavier Valls (Horta, 1923 - Barcelona, 2006) spent his childhood in his hometown, where in 1936 the Swiss sculptor Charles-Henry Collet settled, one of the pioneering cubist creators, who taught him the fundamentals of modeling and the volumes. Later he attended the Massana School (1937-1938), the workshop of the decorator Jaume Busquets (1939-1940), with whom he learned stained-glass window techniques, and that of the goldsmith Ramón Sunyer (1940-1942).
In 1946 he was one of the founders of the Cercle Maillol of the French Institute of Barcelona, and in 1949, with a scholarship from that institution, he would move to Paris, the city where he settled permanently, although he always made frequent visits to Barcelona and other places in Spain where he exhibited. his work.
Recently arrived in the French capital, he frequently attended gatherings at the Café Mabillon, where he became friends with Tristan Tzara, Luis Fernández, Zervos, Salomon, Giacometti, Léger, Balthus and María Zambrano, among other intellectuals who lived in Paris. In his early days, his work shows enthusiasm for cubism and constructivism, characterized his work, until the fifties, by chiaroscuro and powerful plastic values in still lifes and architectural themes with a tendency to geometrization.
Between the sixties and seventies, Valls lives a stage linked to abstraction, but from then on he returns to figuration to which he will remain faithful until the end of his days. At this stage his work stands out for its elegance and luminosity, subtlety and intelligence, elaborating his compositions with brief brushstrokes, defined chromatic touches in a tonal assessment of whites, greys, yellows and blues full of transparencies.
The Valls Dictionary, which is now presented at the Fernández-Braso gallery in Madrid, portrays and details the time, life and people who were by the side of Xavier Valls as artists, writers, musicians, architects, gallery owners and family members. This publication is complemented with an exhibition that brings together a selection of representative paintings from his entire career.
Those in charge of the Madrid gallery assure that “like Cézanne or his admirers Luis Fernández and Caneja, Valls dedicated his entire life to capturing landscapes, family scenes or still lifes, which the Barcelona creator called “living natures”.
Xavier Valls was the son of the founder of the Catalan newspaper El Matí and father of the former Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls who has also been a councilor in the first part of this legislature of the Barcelona City Council. His works are represented in different international museums, as well as the Reina Sofía in Madrid or the MACBA in Barcelona.
Valls described himself "as a craftsman" and among his awards stood out being named a Knight of Arts and Letters of France in 1979 and the Gold Medal of Merit for Fine Arts from the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 1993.
The former director of the Instituto Cervantes and the Museo Reina Sofía Juan Manuel Bonet assured that “with a thin layer of paint and a bare brushstroke, Valls builds a serene, limpid, balanced painting, in which light plays a leading role”. And Mario Antolín, gallery owner and art critic, defined it as "a slow and lovingly crafted painting, with a degree of purity that separates it from any personal feeling, elevating it to an almost mystical conception of objects and landscapes, in a constant lesson in beauty and balance”.
