Joan Gardy Artigas

Biography of Joan Gardy-Artigas

Joan GARDY-ARTIGAS was born in Boulogne, near Paris, in 1938. Son of Josep Llorens Artigas, a renowned ceramist and friend of Miró (with whom he studied) and Picasso, young Joan was immersed in the artistic milieu from his earliest childhood.

Naturally, he joined the Ecole du Louvre and then the Beaux-Arts. If this geographical distance from his father and his original environment allowed him to develop his own style, it also enabled him to connect with artists of a different movement such as Giacometti. He then opened his own ceramic workshop in Paris, collaborating with Braque (who had never succeeded in working with Llorens Artigas) and also with Chagall.

However, as his father's health declined, Joan MIRO called him to come work by his side, and without hesitation, he returned to Spain and began a 20-year collaboration with Miró, only interrupted by the death of the Spanish master... Collaboration whose fruits are now visible worldwide, from Paris (UNESCO) to Barcelona (Airport), from Zurich (Kunsthaus) to Boston (Harvard University).

Monumental sculptures, ceramics adorning walls, fountains, entire buildings, the two men created together, but also separately. And these two experiences form the work of each other, respond to each other, push the two artists further in their research.

At the same time, since the sixties, Joan GARDY ARTIGAS has continued his work in lithography and engraving, exploring various techniques to make his love for color, simplicity of forms, and luminous harmony explode again and again... All elements that are also found in his work as a ceramicist and sculptor.

(c) Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES