All sales are subject to 888 Auctions’ Terms and Conditions of Sale. Bidding is available by live in-house bidding and absentee. A 20% buyer's premium is added to the hammer price of each lot. PAYMENT BY, BANK DRAFT, CERTIFIED CHEQUE OR WIRE TRANSFER ONLY. The auctioneer and 888 Auctions shall have the right to withdraw any item at any time for any reason and to default any sale in the event of an error or dispute. The auctioneer will also have full discretion to reopen the bidding, cancel the sale or re-offer and resell the property. Should a dispute arise after the auction, our sale record is conclusive.
Oil on board painting, featuring two figures, 9.25 x 13.25 in (23.5 x 33.7 cm). Signed and attr. Carlos Nadal (Spanish, 1917-1998) on lower right corner. Nadal was born in Paris on 24 April 1917, but moved to Barcelona in 1921. His father, Santiago Nadal (died 1932) had a commercial design studio, where Carlos not only learned to paint, but met modern artists including Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy and Maurice Utrillo. As well as the informal education from his father’s business, he studied at the School of Arts and Crafts and the Senior Fine Art Academy of St George, both in Barcelona. He was conscripted into the Spanish Republican Army and fought in the Spanish Civil War, including imprisonment and escape from a concentration camp, before finally returning to his art studies, and in 1942 having his first solo exhibition. On 1 December 1948 he married Flore Augusta Zoe Joris (died 30 April 1988) a Belgian sculptor, moving with her to Brussels in 1949. They had a daughter, Marina, in 1955 and a son, Alexandre, in 1957. In the following years they moved residence between Brussels and Barcelona. He died in Barcelona on 6 June 1998. Nadal was particularly influenced by Henri Matisse whom he met as a child, and Georges Braque who was a close acquaintance in the 1940s, and maintained a love of the Fauvist style. His first solo exhibition was in 1942 at La Pinacoteca in Barcelona. His early work was mainly of scenes in Spain or Belgium but when established as a successful artist he travelled extensively, making paintings which often featured modes of transport as well as leisure scenes. According to one critic, the world of Nadal’s paintings was “a flamboyant place where elements coming from everywhere enflame themselves in one frenzy”.