Joan Hernández Pijuan valuation

Joan Hernández Pijuan (1931–2005) was born in Barcelona. He studied at the Escola de la Llotja and, from 1952 to 1956, at the Escola de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, then moved to Paris in 1957 to study engraving and lithography at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1959 he founded the Sílex group with Josep Maria Rovira, Eduard Alcoy and Carles Planell. His early paintings were expressionist. In the 1970s he turned to a calculated, geometric figuration, setting solitary objects such as fruit, cups and eggs against flat bands of grey or green, sometimes with grids and measuring tapes. From the mid-1980s he returned to a freer, informal handling, and his landscapes reduced houses, cypresses and clouds to near-monochrome fields with varied textures. He taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona and became its dean in 1992. He received Spain's National Prize for Plastic Arts in 1981 and the Creu de Sant Jordi in 1985. The Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, which holds his work, gave him a retrospective in 1993, and MACBA, Barcelona, followed in 2003.

He made unique oil paintings on canvas, works on paper in pencil and watercolour, and many lithographs and engravings, some of them in series. For a print, check the signature, the edition number, the publisher and the paper. The flat, near-monochrome grounds of the paintings show dirt, scuffs and old retouching easily, so condition matters, and a gallery invoice and the date of the work should go with it.