Coming out of the bath

The first major event in the artistic career of Salvador Martorell was his presence at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris; the Catalan participation at the event, with its own pavilion, was coordinated by the Promotion of Decorative Arts (FAD). In the field of sculpture, Salvador Martorell was present with two works: Testa de bronze (Bronze Head) and Sortint del bany (Coming out of the bath), the work for which he was awarded the Exhibition Gold Medal at the event. The critic Daniel Giralt-Miracle views this work as “a series of forces around a base of stones with tulips and the emerging, compact and rounded figure, which embodies all the true essences of the earth, inherent to Noucentism, in its physical and volumetric sense”. Salvador Martorell Ollé 1895– 1968) He commenced his training at the Arana i Bru Studio in Tarragona; in 1914 he moved to Barcelona where he studied for one year at the Llotja School and worked at the Gabriel Bechini company. With a scholarship from the Diputació of Tarragona, he stayed in Paris during 1918 and 1919, before returning to Barcelona. He worked as a lecturer at the Tarragona Studio-School of Painting and Sculpture (1934-1938) and at the Studio-School of Art of the Diputació of Tarragona (1947-1965). His work is formally associated with the noucentism movement, with a fine mastery of technique and a great sensibility in the treatment of the human figure. Text by Francesc Roig i Queralt