Catalan Art Brut sculptor and writer, born in 1911 in Agullana (Catalonia), died in 1997 in Toulouse.
Life
From a family of cork makers, he learned the working of cork from his parents and practised it himself. He received only a basic education but was drawn to writing early on: as a teenager he published articles and poems devoted to the cork oak in the local press.
An anti-fascist, he joined the anti-fascist committee and the town council of his village, then enlisted in the Republican army in 1936, where he ran a front-line publication. In February 1939, after Franco’s victory, he crossed into France; arrested in Perpignan, he was interned for more than a year in the camp at Bram (Aude). Settled in Toulouse, he worked in a cork factory and started a family with Paz Santiago Ruiz, a refugee like himself, with whom he had three daughters. Under the Occupation he was sent to the Récébédou camp, then to Le Croisic, where he worked for the Todt Organisation on the Atlantic Wall.
Jean Dubuffet discovered his sculptures in Paris, in the office of René Lajus, the factory’s manager, and at the end of 1948 devoted an exhibition to him at the Foyer de l’art brut, with the participation of André Breton. Gironella wrote poems, plays and novels all his life, for a long time without a publisher, as well as an autobiographical account, L’exil, mon village et moi (1984).
The work
Around 1941 he tried clay, which did not suit him, then devoted himself to cork, which he carved from the block, in the round as well as in low relief. His figures, born of his imagination and nourished by memories of his native Catalonia, play on a whimsical perspective and disproportionate limbs that heighten their expressiveness. He later made wall panels inspired by Catalonia, Islamic art and medieval art. In 1990 he published Exaltació del suro, a collection of poems and images made entirely of cork.
Exhibitions
- 1948: solo exhibition at the Foyer de l’art brut, Paris, organised by Jean Dubuffet
- 1967: “L’art brut”, Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris
- 2021: “Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty”, Barbican, London
- 2022-2023: monographic exhibition at the Museu de l’Exili, La Jonquera, then at the Cork Museum in Palafrugell
- 2023: exhibition at the Galerie christian berst, Paris