Have one like this?
Upload a photo for a free check of what yours may be worth.
Lot description
DIONÍS BENNÀSSAR MULET (Pollença, Mallorca, 1904 - 1967). "Landscape", 1939. Mixed media on card. Signed and dated in the lower right-hand corner. Measurements: 46.5 x 35 cm, 72 x 61 cm (frame). Born into a peasant family, Dionís Bennàssar showed a special inclination for drawing from an early age. After attending primary school, during his adolescence he moved to Palma, with the support of his parents, to take drawing and painting lessons, which he alternated with a job as a mechanic. However, his academic apprenticeship did not last long; his great freedom of ideas and pictorial concepts clashed with the corseted classicism of the time, and he finally returned to Pollença. Enlisted in the army, at the age of eighteen he was wounded in the war in Morocco and returned to Mallorca. The wound he received in his collarbone rendered his right hand useless, but this was no obstacle to his determination to devote himself to painting, using his left hand from then on. From then on he concentrated his efforts on exalting the beauty of well-known and loved landscapes. With his brushes, Bennàssar brought to Mallorcan painting a new aspect characterised by a grandiloquent vision of nature, a vibrant chromaticism and a long, loose brushstroke. Around 1926 the artist came into contact with Anglada Camarasa, who had settled in Pollença in 1913, followed by a large number of his disciples from Paris, among them Tito Cittadini, who was to become a great friend and teacher of the Mallorcan. Dionís Bennàssar took an active part in the social and cultural life of the town. He was a popular and appreciated character, and he was often seen in the Juma bar, where he enjoyed chatting with his companions. He was an artist who enjoyed his village and its people. Due to this fact and for health reasons, he did not leave Pollença, although he did not lack opportunities. In 1940 he held a solo exhibition at the Costa gallery in Palma, presented by his friend Cittadini. On that occasion he would say that "His art is more than rhetoric; it is sensibility, palpitation, beauty, in the aristocratic sense of the word...". Bennàssar managed to win critical acclaim and was awarded a grant by the Diputación for a study trip to the main Spanish cities. The difficult years were behind him, and the artist began to enjoy economic stability, which enabled him to buy a house and, in 1943, to marry. From this moment on, two stages can be distinguished in the artist's career: a first period of technical experimentation and a stage of full maturity, exuberant in its colouring. Mainly focused on landscape painting, he also tackled portraits and even some mythological themes. At present, Bennàssar is mainly represented in the house-museum that bears his name in Pollença, Mallorca.