Ibarz, who borrowed from Cézanne's teachings and internalized them, belonged to the Barcelona Group, to which the most famous painters of Catalonia belonged as well, such as Miró, Tàpies and Villelia. Yet he remained true to his own personal style. He also showed his mural paintings in public. In his paintings in the 70's he reached the threshold of abstraction: 'd'una abundosa i forta paleta en la qual dominen i s'oposen els blaus, els vermells i els verds...' (from an abundant and strong palette in which blues, reds and greens predominate and contrast...), and then returned to a clearly figurative style. The light of the Côte d'Azur, where he had his summer studio, supported the decorative brightness of his popular painterly reality. His was an idealized, romanticizing, illustrative art, characterized by a glazed layer of paint. His theme: the familiar view from his summer work spot.

As painter and graphic artist, Miquel Ibarz otherwise lived and worked in Barcelona, and kept good relations with Sala Gaspar (catalogue): He created a name for himself as a versed lithographer who achieved his illustrative images from several plates. After a phase inspired by Cubism (portraits, nudes, still lives) he turned at first to an impasto, abstract, and then primarily watercolor technique. These varnished processes are evident in his lithographs. Landscapes of the Mediterranean, still lives (with an echo of the Paris School, and surprisingly often with the motif of the song-bird). They had populated his summer studio in St. Pol de Mar on the Costa Brava, according to reports by Friedrich Herlt, who often visited the artist on behalf of Grafos. The birds kept the introverted Ibarz company as they flew in and out. In his colorful compositions, the things which the artist came across daily are poetically reflected. He lifted them masterfully into his world. The view from his window, fruit bowls, the balcony table, flowers in a vase, the light-filled landscape atmosphere, and again, the day and night birds. His paintings and graphics are characterized by a masterfully decorative, colorist wholeness and a tranquil joie de vivre. Sala Gaspar of Barcelona and Grafos Verlag of Vaduz have chosen for the publisher this selection from 1977-87, representative of Miquel Ibarz' work from his last period. ek