The exhibition, titled Esther Boix. A World in Struggle, can be visited until July 12 and offers a complete overview of the life and work of Boix (Llers, 1927 - Anglès, 2014), a figure who challenged the conventions of her time and was a pioneer on the path to artistic modernity. The exhibition, which comes on the eve of her birth centenary, highlights her personal evolution, which began with a profound observation of the human being and culminated in an expanded view towards nature.
In a century of re-reading the 20th century, especially in the artistic field, women artists are gaining the recognition that had historically been denied to them. After valuing figures such as Lluïsa Vidal, Mari Chordà, Olga Sacharoff, or Eugènia Balcells, it is now the turn of Esther Boix with this major retrospective, the most important since the exhibition Esther Boix. Mirrors and Mirages held in Girona in 2007. The curator of the exhibition is Bernat Puigdollers.
Although her name may be little known to the general public, Esther Boix was a fundamental artist of contemporary Catalan art. She was part of the Estampa Popular Catalana movement, a period in which she created works such as Woman Scrubbing and Children Locked Up (1965), which is part of the Museo Reina Sofía collection. The current exhibition includes a similar version, Woman Scrubbing (1966). According to the curator, Boix was an advanced artist in her feminist demands, her political struggle, her educational vocation, and her ecological awareness.
The exhibition tour, which occupies the two halls of Espais Volart, follows a chronological order, showing how her painting reflects her personal experiences and the context of her time. Her beginnings are marked by an introspective vision, influenced by the polio she suffered as a child. This circumstance led her to refine her sense of contemplation in a post-war context, with everyday scenes such as My Brother (1948) and solitary figures such as Woman with Chair (1950), which demonstrate her technique learned at the Escola de Belles Arts.
In this academic environment, she met the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs and the writer Ricard Creus, who would later become her partner. Together they founded the artistic group Postectura, which advocated for reality and pure forms. From this period are paintings with a style close to Fauvism, such as Jazz Musicians (1951), The Café (1953), or The Bread Man (1960). Boix herself, in an audiovisual projection at the exhibition, stated that it was the period in which she began to unlearn everything she considered too rigid from school.
Later, as a couple, Esther Boix and Ricard Creus traveled to Milan, where they met intellectuals and artists who opened up a new world to them. This influence is reflected in works such as Il naviglio (1957) or the Self-portrait of 1958, where the artist's face stands out against an intense blue background, and even more so in the painting from the same year dedicated to her son Adrià, already back in Barcelona.
Involved in anti-Franco movements, in 1966 she was arrested for the events known as La Capuchinada. During this period, her work became closer to poster art, with a clear intention of manifesto, such as Those Who Stone or Those Who Are Stoned (1965), alluding to street protests, or Triptych of Incommunication (1967), which reflects her experience in the police station.
Parallel to her creative work, Boix also developed a prominent pedagogical role. Together with Maria Dolors Bonal, Pilar Anglada, and Ricard Creus, she founded in 1967 the L'ARC school, an innovative center dedicated to music, plastic arts, and oral expression, which fostered the social and human values of the students. The exhibition includes video interviews with former students to approach this experience.
Over the years, her gaze became more essential, focusing on the landscape: forests, fields, rivers. After Franco's death, the couple settled in La Garrotxa, where Esther Boix observed the environment with renewed intensity. From this period comes a series dedicated to La Fageda d'en Jordà and prints such as Outlets (1975), Storm (1981), or Weightless Paths (1984). The chronological journey through her work culminates with the painting The Nothingness and Man. Homage to Goya (1996), a version of Goya's work Half-Submerged Dog, which reflects a relativistic thought about human existence and synthesizes her life journey.
