Ecce Homo

The sculptor’s most creative period was the 50s and 60s. During this period, more than ever before, he made sure that his religious works bore the stamp of his genuine art. There were several versions of the work Ecce Homo; the one exhibited here, stylised with a high degree of abstraction, intense and emblematic, is pure Saumells. Lluís M. Saumells Panadés (1915-1999) He held his first exhibition in Tarragona, in 1934, at the Ateneu Tarraconense, and in 1945 moved to Paris with a scholarship from the French government. On his return from France, in 1949, he was appointed the Director of the Studio-School of Art of the Diputació of Tarragona, the city where he would make his home, except for occasional stays in Palma. The artist, using a defined volume presents a minimum of details, creating his own typology with which he would work constantly, with minor variations: expressionist figures of hands with long and thin fingers and angular faces. The same characteristics are also applied to his pictorial and paper production. His commitment to art would result in him becoming a true promoter of culture in the city. Text by Enric Baixeras