Manolo Hugué

Manolo Hugué or Manuel Hugué says “Manolo”. Manolo is the pseudonym chosen by Manuel Hugué there Martinez. This sculptor, painter, engraver, draftsman, were born in Barcelona (Spain) in 1872 and died out in Catalonia with Caldes de Montbui (close to Barcelona) in 1945; it rests with the cemetery of this small town in which it lived.

Biography

Raised by his/her sister in Barcelona, Manolo émancipe quickly of this supervision to carry out an adventurous life. He will be pupil at the School of the Art schools of Barcelona during 3 years and carries out some projects of artistic decoration at once. He is twenty years old when, deserter, he goes on a first journey to Paris in 1892. He will come to settle there for ten years with the whole beginning of the century (1901-1909). There, it binds with Picasso, the sculptor ceramist Francisco Durrio, with the painter Edmond-Marie Poullain and with the artists of Montmartre and Montparnasse. It is regularly at this period the night companion of the poet Jean Moréas.

Not succeeding in earning its living suitably, it leaves to settle in Céret (the Eastern Pyrenees) in 1910. In 1912 and 1913, for long stays, Directs, Picasso and Juan Gris comes to join it. His/her friends Franck Burty Haviland and the type-setter Déodat de Séverac make the same ones.

Manolo contracts a serious infirmity with leaving the Great War; it must give up the sculpture to be devoted to painting, more particularly with the watercolour. In the middle of the Twenties, it leaves Céret and settles again in its country of origin, in Caldes de Montbui (Spain). Having taken part in some collective exposures, its work will be also shown in personal exposures, primarily in Barcelona and Paris, but also in New York, the last having been organized with the Museum Tavet-Delacour (Pontoise, 1995). Manolo carved, modelled, often maternities or small figures cocasses impressed primitivism. It will illustrate Reverdy and carry out some rare monumental sculptures (one can see still today “the Catalan woman” on one of the places of Céret). Céret will become one of the key places of the cubism.

The Museum of modern art of Céret has a beautiful collection of works of Manolo Hugué.

Close to the arenas of this city, in the center of a roundabout, a statue, representing a toreador paying homage to those of the whole world, was set up in the years 1980 according to the work of the Manolo sculptor.

Some works

of " Catalane" of Manolo Hugué
of the " Toréador" according to the work of Manolo.

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