Victorian School Boys in Top Hats, Signed Original Huge Oil Painting

The School Boys by Maria Tort Xirau (Catalan, 1924-2018) signed lower corner oil painting on canvas, unframed canvas: 29 x 40 inches Very good condition. Provenance: from the artists estate, France Maria Tort Xirau ( Figueres , 26 May 1924 – 6 June 2018) was a painter and photographic and cinematographic editor from Emporda. She developed a long professional career in leading photographic studios, in films for The Walt Disney Company and also in advertising claims for companies such as Educa Borràs . The second half of her life was dedicated to painting, exercising a luminous, varied and nostalgic chromatic style in the techniques of oil and watercolor and with exhibitions of her work in Barcelona and Figueres. The Biographical Dictionary of Art Empordà defined Tort Xirau’s work as “a painting that is characterized by the strength of the strokes, the vividness and brightness of the chromatic range and exudes mastery of the photographic technique. A mixture of nostalgia and tenderness is evident.”. Tort Xirau’s paintings were exhibited in the two towns where she spent her life: in 1992 she exhibited his work at the Caixa de Figueres Exhibition Hall. Two years later, she did it at Sala Conex in Barcelona and in 2007 and 2013 the Consortium of Sant Ferran Castle and the Figueres Town Council organized tribute exhibitions. In 2013, she ceded to the council of the city of Figueres her work Mercat de la plaça de l’Ajuntament , watercolored on paper around 1991, which is exhibited in the rest room of the building. On June 6, 2018, she died in Figueres at the age of 94, receiving the apostolic blessing . Two years after her death, part of her paintings were included in the exhibition Paint, create, live. Women artists in the Alt Empordà (1830-1939) of the Museu de l’Empordà , curated by Cristina Massanés and dedicated to recovering the lives of 31 women artists from the region through 100 of their works and a feminist perspective.