“I find it funny when they ask me if I don't feel ashamed about selling a painting. What makes me sad is not selling it. The best advertising is the paintings hanging in people's homes.” This phrase by Antonio Vives Fierro describes his personality very well, that of an extroverted artist, lover of social life, tireless worker, who sought in figuration the most direct way to reach the public. He died yesterday at the age of 83 and was still able to enjoy an exhibition just a few months ago in the garages of the Palau Robert in Barcelona, curated by his daughter Claudia and visited by more than 17,000 people.
Antonio Vives Fierro entered the Llotja at the age of 14, advised by his father, who worked in the graphic arts sector, and trained at the Sant Lluc Artistic Circle, where he was a student of, among others, Josep Maria Garrut and the sculptor Tomás Bel. In 1961 he settled in Paris and the following year he exhibited for the first time in Cartagena. In 1970 he settled in London, the subject of many of his paintings and exhibitions, but from 1980 onwards Barcelona was the city that accredited him as an urban landscape painter. “I have walked intensely through Barcelona, the city I love the most. I discovered that my city was neither the Rambla nor the Barri Gòtic nor the port nor Tibidabo. My Barcelona is the Eixample, modernism, the Quadrat d’Or that has now become famous,” he once commented. His stays in other cities and travels allowed him to extend this urban portrait to Paris, Havana, Amsterdam, Madrid, Venice, Tokyo..., which have been translated into many other exhibitions and several books that compile his work on those populations.
His oil paintings and watercolors fit into figurative art, but he developed his own language with impressionist notes, sometimes with collages on canvas, which give his landscapes a life of their own. In its streets there are people, there is life, and a certain nostalgia for a past less homogeneous than the current one.
Portraiture has been another of his specialties. He claimed to have made more than 400, despite recognizing that it was the most thankless part of his job, because no one was completely happy with the result. And another of his favorite themes were dolls.
His work is not limited to painting. From a very young age he made labels and advertising posters. Later he made murals and designed commemorative posters, medals and ceramic pieces. From his collaboration with jewelers arise pieces such as J oia del passeig de Gràcia, made by Rogeli Roca, and Joia de la sardana, with the Tous, the latter awarded by the Generalitat in 1997. He worked extensively on graphic work and throughout his career He received different awards such as the Cercle Artístic de Barcelona for drawing (1973), the Sant Pol de Mar for painting (1976), the Ricard Canals for painting (1980), the Key of Barcelona (1998) and the Creu de Sant Jordi ( 2002). He has also written books and diaries, such as Catalunya segle XXI. Interviews and Portraits or Smell of Turpentine, and well-known authors such as Baltasar Porcel, Maria Lluïsa Borràs, Josep Maria Cadena and Jaume Vidal have dedicated monographic studies to it.
Vives Fierro's extensive career has had indispensable support from his wife, Emi. In the catalog of her last exhibition at the Palau Robert, this phrase from the artist himself was included: “When they ask me what I would do without her, the answer is always the same: I would not do anything, which is what I did before I met her.” . Emi helped put order in his extensive work, which precisely because it is very commercial has sold well and has contributed to his popularity.
