Eliseu Meifrèn facts for kids
Eliseu Meifrèn i Roig (born December 24, 1857 or 1859, in Barcelona; died February 5, 1940, in Barcelona) was a famous Spanish Impressionist painter. He was known for his beautiful paintings, especially of landscapes and seascapes.
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About Eliseu Meifrèn
Eliseu Meifrèn loved art from a young age. He first started studying medicine, but he soon realized his true passion was painting. So, he decided to switch and enrolled at the Escola de la Llotja, an art school in Barcelona. There, he learned from great teachers like Antoni Caba and Ramon Martí Alsina.
In 1879, Eliseu moved to Paris, France. To pay for his studies, he painted and sold small pictures of city scenes. He also took a short trip to Italy, which greatly influenced his painting style. When he returned to Spain in 1881, he showed his work at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts.
Life in Paris and First Exhibitions
The next year, Eliseu got married. He and his wife spent their honeymoon in Paris and decided to live there. In 1890, he had his first solo art show in Barcelona at the Sala Parés. He displayed seventy oil paintings. What was special about this show was that he decided to auction off any paintings that didn't sell. His friend, the artist Santiago Rusiñol, helped him figure out the prices. Eliseu used the money he earned to travel back to Italy.
In 1892, he returned to Paris again. This time, he started spending time with the Impressionist painters. This changed how he used colors in his art, making them brighter and more vibrant. Five years later, he moved to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands after being invited by a literary club. His home there became like a small art school, and one of his students was Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre, who later became a famous artist himself.
Traveling the World
Eliseu Meifrèn became very famous around the year 1900. He had art shows in South America and across Europe. However, some of his works didn't sell well at an exhibition in Barcelona. Because of this, he decided to move to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1903. He quickly held his first exhibition there. In 1904, he organized a big show of Catalan painters, which even included five pastel drawings by the young Pablo Picasso.
In 1905, Eliseu was offered a job as the Director of the "Escola de d´Arts i Oficis de Palma" on Mallorca, an island in Spain. He accepted and moved there. Even with this new job, he kept traveling a lot. He visited France, Italy, Buenos Aires again, and Brussels. In Brussels, he took part in the International Exposition in 1910 and won a Silver Medal.
In 1915, he traveled to the United States. He wanted to show his art at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, where he received an honorable mention. He also won a Grand Prize at an exhibition in San Diego. After that, he lived for a short time in New York. There, he showed paintings of Mallorca and Cadaqués, a village in Spain where he had spent his summers since 1886.
Later Life and Legacy
Finally, in 1917, Eliseu Meifrèn returned to Barcelona to stay. His wife passed away in 1924, and he remarried in 1930. When the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, he and his family had to leave Barcelona. They lived as refugees in Manresa until 1939.
In December 1939, his very last art show was held in Barcelona at the Sala Gaspar. It was a big success, both with art critics and financially. However, Eliseu was too ill to attend. Just a few weeks later, his health got much worse, and he passed away in February 1940, in his home city of Barcelona. He left behind a wonderful collection of paintings that are still admired today.
See also
In Spanish: Eliseo Meifrén Roig para niños
