Andreu Gamboa-Rothvoss (Sabadell, 1910 - Barcelona, 1970)
"Mujer azul" (Blue woman)
Watercolour and ink on paper. Signed and dated 1928. 24,5 x 12,7 cm.
According to the "Diccionario de las Vanguardias en España (1907 – 1936)" (Dictionary of the Avant-Gardistes of Spain) (1995), by Juan Manuel Bonet, Andrés Gamboa-Rothvoss, pseudonym of Andrés Gamboa González-Rothvoss, was a painter, illustrator and caricaturist, born in Sabadell and a disciple of Joan Vila Cinca. He studied in Paris with André Lhote and is remembered for participating in the "Exposicion Logicofobista" in Barcelona. He was quoted in "Profil de sombras" (1994) by Juan Ramón Masoliver.
In 2017, the Museu d'Art de Sabadell held an important exhibition dedicated to the painter, "Logicofobistes 1936. El surrealisme com a revolució de l'esperit. Andreu Gamboa-Rothvoss, recuperant un logicofobista de Sabadell" (Logicophobists 1936. Surrealism with a revolution of the spirit. Andreu Gamboa-Rothvoss, reviving a logicophobist from Sabadell", from February 16 to 23 April 2017. The curator of the exhibition, the art critic Josep Miquel Garcia, states in an article for the exhibition that Gamboa-Rothvoss is, “the most unprecedented and enigmatic figure of all the logicophobists.”
The painter, as we said, continued his training in Paris, where today, as Garcia tells us, his life drawings are kept at the Académie Grande Chaumière. His stay in the French capital, which lasted until at least 1934, greatly influenced him. In fact, it could be that this “Blue woman”, dated 1928, was created in France. We can clearly see the influence of the modernity of Paris in the 1920s and its avant-gardistes, as well as Picasso's blue period in the work that we present.
Continuing with his biography, according to Garcia, once he arrived in Barcelona, he embraced the activities of the group “Amics de l'Art Nou (ADLAN)”, a Catalan artistic movement founded in Barcelona in 1932 by Carles Sindreu, Joan Prats and Josep Lluís Sert in order to champion avant-garde art. In Barcelona he held the only known art exhibition at Syra galleries in 1933. To announce it, La Vanguardia published the following on January 6, 1933: "The artist Gamboa Rothvoss, a long-term resident in Paris, will open an exhibition of paintings at Syra Galleries tomorrow," as Josep Playà indicates in the article "Another surrealist painter rediscovered” (2017).
Until his return to Barcelona, "his painting followed post-impressionist guidelines, with works marked by a linear structuring of figures, but as he got more deeply into surrealism he created dreamlike images with collage, well-drawn, outlined figures, and always with gestural backgrounds,” Josep Miquel Garcia explains.
Later, in 1958, he moved to Ibiza alone after separating from his former wife, Núria Garreta Socias, with whom he had two children. There, in the “fishermen's quarter”, Garcia tells us that he “actively participated in the cultural life of the island” and developed a style that, without being abstract, accentuates expressiveness and outline. Finally, he moved to Majorca until 1969, when he had to return to Barcelona to be admitted to the Hospital Clínic, where he died in 1970.
Having reviewed the biography of Gamboa-Rothvoss, we can conclude that our Blue woman is from the stage when his artistic personality was forming, from a moment of transition in which the seed of the surrealist Rothvoss had been planted and would end up being developed in his Barcelona stage and even in the most abstract and solitary work from the Balearic Islands.
Bibliographic references:
-Bonet, J. M. (1995). “Diccionario de las Vanguardias en España (1907-1936)”. Page 267. Alianza Editorial.
-Enciclopèdia.cat. (s. f.). “Amics de l’Art Nou”. Collected on 19th May 2022, from https://www.enciclopedia.cat/gran-enciclopedia-catalana/amics-de-lart-nou
-Garcia, J. M. (2017). “Andreu Gamboa Rothvoss. Recuperant un logicofobista de Sabadell”. Arraona. No. 36, pp. 192-195.
-Playà, J. (19 February 2017). “Otro pintor surrealista redescubierto”. La Vanguardia. Https://www.lavanguardia.com/cultura/20170219/42144105526/otro-pintor-surrealista-redescubierto.html