Albert Ràfols-Casamada
1923–2009 · Spanish painter and poet, a figure of the Catalan avant-garde
Albert Ràfols-Casamada (2 February 1923 – 17 December 2009) was a Catalan painter and poet, a central figure of the avant-garde movements of his time and one of the most versatile Catalan artists of the twentieth century. His work began in a post-expressionist, figurative vein and later moved toward abstraction, always grounded in a poetic reading of everyday reality.
He began studying architecture at the University of Barcelona between 1942 and 1944, but by 1948 he had decided to devote himself fully to painting. He first exhibited in 1946 at the Sala Pictòria, as part of the collective Els Vuit, and the following year had a solo show at the same gallery. In 1950 he won a French government scholarship to study in Paris, where he spent much of the next four years alongside his future wife, the painter Maria Girona.
His output includes works such as Blau profund (1959) and the stained glass of the Basilica of the Virgen del Camino in León. In 1967 he co-founded EINA, an art and design school in Barcelona in the Bauhaus tradition, which he directed for seventeen years. He also published poetry from 1972 onward, including Signe d'aire, and illustrated Catalan literary classics such as Mirall trencat by Mercè Rodoreda.
His legacy is held in museums worldwide and in the Library of Catalonia, which received the personal archive of the couple in 2015.