Ibarz, Miguel

Miguel Ibarz Roca was born in Mequinenza (Aragon) in 1920 and studied in Barcelona. Ibarz belonged to the Barcelona Group and thus came into early contact with Catalonia's best-known artists: first Picasso, Miró, Tápies, but also Villelia, Clavé, Llovet and Riera. The early years were marked by joint exhibitions at the Sala Gaspar gallery, where Ibarz also exhibited later (catalogues.). Miguel Ibarz accepts commissions for art on buildings: 1948-1949 murals in the parish church of Mequinenza and in the music hall of Antigua Escuela de Mar, 1957 in the Radio Studio España de Barcelona and 1960-1961 in Caja de Ahorros, Manlleu. 1951 mosaic at the Iglesias de Hospitalet Barcelona. 1952/ 53 in Paris; travels to Italy, Switzerland, England and Germany. Ibarz distinguishes himself above all as a lithographer. From 1956 he produced lithographs for Arta Zurich and Sala Gaspar Barcelona, and from 1977 in collaboration with Grafos Verlag Vaduz. Ibarz's luminous lithographs are characterised by a glazing style. Starting from Cézanne's teachings, then, in the 1970s, more in the style of a De Staël, Ibarz found his idealising, luminously decorative way of looking at the landscape of the Costa Azul and the optical environment of his summer studio (St. Pol de mar), into which he was henceforth able to paint. The songbirds that kept him company became a leitmotif even in his last creative years. Miquel Ibarz Roca died in 1987. This biography is subject to copyright. (c) Evi Kliemand, 1998. All rights reserved. Reproduced with kind permission of the author.