The Barcelona Maritime Museum exhibits seascapes by Josep Tenas
“Tenas and the sea” includes around forty pieces that the Canet de Mar-born painter produced in the 80s and 90s using a variety of techniques and with the sea as the main source of inspiration
Born in Canet de Mar in 1943 in a late-17th-century fisherman’s dwelling, Josep Tenas was an artist who experienced and painted the sea with intensity and passion. Up until the 14th of June the foyer of the Barcelona Maritime Museum is exhibiting around forty canvasses that the painter produced during the 80s and 90s with the sea as the principal element and employing acrylics, Indian ink and mixed techniques.
Tenas began his artistic career in Switzerland, where he lived from 1975 to 1985. Following an initial period in which he displayed an elegant figurative style influenced by Picasso and Goya, the artist returned to Catalonia. Without completely abandoning the figurative style, Tenas began the search for a personal style through the use of deformation and violent brush strokes. By the 90s the work of the painter was to place primary importance on the subject matter.
In 1993 Josep Tenas founded the art space Estudi 1694, in Canet de Mar, which hosted exhibitions, meetings and other activities. Here the artist experimented with a wide range of techniques including installations, etchings, artist’s books, illustration and even sculpture. Tenas i el mar (Tenas and the sea) reveals that endless source of inspiration that the sea held for the artist, the canvasses featuring the people and fishermen’s dwellings that formed such an integral part of his life as well as other sea-related elements such as the smells, the sea breezes and the sense of freedom that fishing villages evoke.
Tenas and the sea
When: from the 15th of April up to the 14th of June
Price: free entrance
When: Museu Marítim de Barcelona's hall
More information here