#AtoZChallenge: Nonell, Isidre (Picasso)

Isidre Nonell was an artist friend of Picasso’s from Barcelona. He was born in 1872, so he was about nine years older than Picasso. Unfortunately, he died in 1911, probably when Picasso was in southern France with Eva Gouel.

Nonell’s paintings are classified as post-impressionism work, and some think his work belongs to modernism and postmodernism. Nonell is also known for painting those down on their luck or from the fringes of society.

Nonell attended art schools, as he was thought to be very talented from a young age. His family owned a factory that produced noodles. Nonell was friends with some prominent Catalan artists, including Juli Vallmitjana. At some point Nonell went with Vallmitjana to the town of Caldes de Boí, where Vallmitjana was from, to work at the family spa. Here Nonell’s eyes were opened in this spa town to the suffering of other people and he focused his art on such subjects.

Besides painting, Nonell worked as an illustrator for several journals.

The subject that Nonell is most known for painting are gypsy women. These paintings were sad and dark. He was criticized for focusing on the marginalized people of Barcelona.

In 1897, Nonell went to Paris and there he roomed with Picasso for a time. He went back to Barcelona for a while and then back to Paris. He left Paris in 1900.

About his work:

The oil paintings show the influence of impressionism and pointillism expressed in a new way. Thick strokes layered one after another do not quite mix colors in the eye, leaving a directness of emotion. His subjects, most often women, are the poor and marginalized people of society: poor women (often with children), gypsies, wounded soldiers repatriated from the Cuban war, and people suffering from cretinism.

Though, his magazine drawings were critical of society, his other works show a deep feeling for those who suffered. His frank portrayal of poverty earned him mostly criticism and rejection. (Wikipedia)

From http://www.isidrenonell.cat:

Between 1906 and 1907 Nonell’s works shifted towards brighter and lighter colours, at the same time incorporating white race models, in a kind and nicer attitude, which will gradually substitute his melancholic gypsies. In 1908 he worked again as an illustrator for the satirical magazine “Papitu” which was founded this same year by Feliu Elias. He published a total of 42 splendid drawings, some of which he signed with the biblical names of Noe and Josue. These works were very well received by the public, therefore compensating in some way the general indifference against his pictorical work.

In 1911, Nonell died of typhus at only 38 years old.

One of Nonell’s drawings:

One of his paintings: