Artist

Maria Girona

Maria Girona grew up in a culturally-rich family environment. She trained at the Acadèmia Tàrrega, where she met other painters of her generation and with whom she founded the Els Vuit group, one of the first artists’ groups seeking an artistic renewal in Catalonia.

Her artwork, drawing on Matisse’s painting and pre-civil war Noucentist Catalan Mediterraneanism, rejected the artifice and virtuosity of the painting that was so prevalent in the early years of the Francoist dictatorship, but rather sought modernity, through her use of colour and essentiality. Throughout her life, she was loyal to her artistic principles, neither tempted by fads nor effectivism, and she focused on a very personal figuration, with the exception of a series of collages of high plastic interest which she made during the sixties. Along with her husband, Albert Ràfols Casamada, she was involved in the most innovative initiatives of the time and she took part in the process of creating the EINA Design School.