por Margarita Puig - Periodista

Surrealismo en Sitges
Francesc Miralles ha publicado el nuevo libro sobre este artista que trabaja en el hotel Estela, al que también estuvieron muy vinculados Subirachs y Grau Garriga

22 de julio de 2018

by Jose Villamarin - Journalist

JOSEP PUIGMARTI - A TRANSGRESSIVE GENIUS 

An artist hard to define, a spiritual wanderer whose work is universal, very wide and varied. Transgressor, vital, provocative, a genius in his pure state. This is Josep Puigmarti

Born in the town of Monistrol de Calders (Barcelona) in 1932, Josep Puigmartí has been an artist all his life. Member of a family of artists (his father, a painter, eventual artist, although his first exhibition was after the his son's debut, also his brother Robert is an artist), but self-taught in his life and work, Josep Puigmartí set his residence in Sitges since 1989, after an extraordinary bohemian life that led him to live in Sweden, Paris, Los Angeles...

by Gema Castellano - Journalist

JOSEP PUIGMARTI: AN ARTIST HALFWAY BETWEEN GENIUS AND ECCENTRICITY

Sunday, 25th February 2007

Definitely not a “typical” painter. Experts who have analyzed his pictorial creation match in this thesis, although Francesc Miralles, historian and art critic, a great scholar of his work, is who "dots the I’s and crosses the T’s" about the artist's style. His book "Josep Puigmartí Sunrise - H214" shows us an artist marked by his experiences and an extremely and unusually fertile creativity, but to understand the meaning of his painting is necessary to know the artist and his work. Settled down in Sitges after a long journey of years that took him to travel around the world, his headquarters is now the Hotel Estela Barcelona, a shelter that guarantees the "rest of the warrior" and inner peace needed to break the feel of memories of his eventful life and "spit" on a canvas. He does so with anger and resentment, almost automatically, but also with nostalgia, elegance and even a sarcastic theatrical sense of humor that makes him a genius.

by Francesc Miralles - Art Critic and Historian
Introduction to the book "Sunrise, H214"
Editorial Mediterrània, 2004

INTRODUCTION

I think the first thing I should say is that in this study I am not exactly dealing with a painter, in the usual sense of the word, rather with a complex – highly complex – character who, according to someone who acted as his dealer for a certain time, was the most spectacular, shocking and singular person among all his acquaintances. How is Josep Puigmartí shocking, singular and spectacular? In a nutshell: in every way.

Not many people could claim that on their first trip to Sweden in 1957, they slept in thirty different places during the first month, from a hayloft to a five-star hotel, each night properly accompanied. Not many people could claim that while being sought out by famous international brand names to decorate their window displays, they were obliged to create dozens and dozens of lithographs with clearly commercial subjects and prices, signed under different pseudonyms, just to subsist.

Nor could many people claim that they lived in Cadaqués during innumerable summers in the shadow of the gods, and that they were models in photographs taken by the Catalan cultural elite. There were not many artists like Puigmartí who in those years wandered around Europe, holding show after show after show, and who like him were one day left without a past, without a written memory, because an impassioned woman caused his suitcase to vanish without a trace, and this contained all his documents. There are not many people who, when favourable winds are blowing, prefer to just live one day at a time, even if painting is their invincible passion.

"La Galeria" by Josep M. Cadena (Art Critic)

Exit Magazine, No. 44| El Periodico

THE ART CRITIC JOSEP M. CADENA, VISITS THE CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER PUIGMARTI

IN BOURG-MADAME, FRANCE

Surprising space with Catalan Art in the French Cerdagne

Few artists are as surprisingly creative as Puigmarti not only installed in his dreams but always arranged to capture them for the others. He painted beautiful girls with four or six pairs of bosoms, as well as with vibrant buttocks, but also now he gives body to the demons that live in the hell of his mind.

By Alec Forssmann - Journalist

Photo by Sheyla Butsems

AT DALI’S PLACE WE WERE ALWAYS HAVING A PARTY

Made-up eyes, pendants and dressed all white, including brimmed hat. This is the way the artist Pep Puigmarti moves around Sitges, who, at his 76, and away from the bohemian practices, keeps intact his tireless creativity.

"Portrait of Linda Evans" by Puigmarti

Ensaimada (Mallorcan pastry) empty boxes, teletubbies, magazine clippings, match boxes, bottles of water or bread crumbs are part of the universe of this particular self-taught painter. “And let the brush dance” gestures Josep Puigmarti (Monistrol de Calders, 1932) sitting comfortably in the Art Hotel, in Sitges, a company and a village where he feels in his element.

Source: Bourg-Madame Town Hall

The new space of contemporary art of the French Cerdagne will accommodate the work of this Catalan painter.

The ancient Tourism Office in the village of La Guingueta D'ix (Bourg-Madame), in the French Cerdagne, will become the headquarters of Josep Puigmarti's works. The result will be a space of contemporary art, with the name of the same painter, which will accommodate a hundred of works. This initiative wants to contribute to the cultural development of the region and to increase, thus, the commercial potential with the increase of the number of visitors.

Complementing the exhibition, a projector of video will spread all the works of the career of the artist in continuity. The center will be a unique place in the Cerdagne and will constitute, undoubtedly, a new form of cultural enrichment.