1000 Museums

Ramón Martí Alsina (1826-1894) was a Catalan painter. Born in Barcelona, his father passed away when he was eight, leaving him an orphan. Despite his misfortune and financial struggles, he was able to train at the Llotja from 1840 to 1844, while also earning his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at the same time. After completing his studies, he moved to Mataró where he worked painting naturalistic portraits and landscapes en plein air. In 1848, he traveled to Paris for the first time and was exposed to Romanticism and French Realism, the latter of which would have a large impact on his own work. He was made professor of linear drawing at the Llotja in 1852 and, two years later, began to teach figure drawing as well. He regularly showed work at the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, earning various high-placing medals throughout the years. He paint a wide variety of subjects and genres, all in the Realist style, which he recognized for introducing to Catalan painting. Due to the large amount of debt he was growing, he had to be working constantly. He had a massive enterprise of seven different workships with numerous assistants to help him, many of whom went on to be the next generation of Modernist Catalan painters. In the final years of his life, he worked on a monumental painting of the historical scene The Siege of Gerona. It was left uncomplete, as he passed away in 1894.