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Pierre Daura
1896–1976
BirthplaceMinorca, Spain
Death placeRockbridge Baths, Virginia, United States of America
BiographyPierre Daura worked in a variety of styles and media that reflect many artistic sources, his wide-ranging life experiences, and the influence of the early twentieth-century European avant-garde milieu in which he spent his formative years. Born Pedro Francisco Daura y Garcia on the Spanish island of Minorca, Daura was raised in Barcelona, the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia. He attended Barcelona's School of Fine Arts and, with the encouragement of his godfather, famed cellist Pablo Casals, went to Paris in 1914 for further study. The vibrant community of avant-garde artists Daura joined there included a circle of important Catalan expatriates.
Three years of compulsory Spanish military service on Minorca interrupted Daura's career between 1917 and 1920. On his return to Paris, he took up printmaking and continued to paint while working as a designer and printer of silk dress fabrics. He exhibited periodically with a Catalan artists' group in Barcelona and at galleries in Amsterdam and Paris. In 1929, Daura helped form the artists' group Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square), which promoted geometric construction and abstraction over the perceived irrationality of art based on symbolism from religion, dreams, and the imagination. Although it held only one exhibition, Cercle et Carré included many important emerging modernist artists. Daura himself created abstract compositions but was fundamentally drawn to representation. His use of powerful forms and expressive color was influenced by pioneering modernist Paul Cézanne (1839—1906) and by his friend the American modernist Alfred Maurer (1868—1932); he also found inspiration in the works of the Spanish Renaissance painter known as El Greco (1541—1614) and in cave paintings.
In 1930, Daura and his wife, American painter Louise Blair (1905—72), purchased a thirteenth-century house in St. Cirq-Lapopie, in the Midi-Pyrenées region of southern France, where their only child, Martha, was born. Notable for its preserved medieval character, the town became one of the artist's perennial subjects; he also created still life images, landscapes, and portraits and figure studies of family and friends. Daura first visited the United States in 1934—35, on a family visit to Virginia. In 1937, during his service with the anti-Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War, he was badly wounded. Daura was recovering in France when his Spanish citizenship was revoked at the war's end; he never returned to his native land.
The artist and his family were in Virginia in 1939, when the outbreak of World War II prevented them from returning to Europe. The artist eventually became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at Washington and Lee University, Lynchburg College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College (now Randolph College) until 1953, when he resumed painting fulltime. In 1959, he built a home and studio in Rockbridge Baths, Virginia, and lived alternately there and in St. Cirq-Lapopie until his death at the age of eighty. Although still better known in his native Catalonia than in his adopted country, Daura is well represented in American museums, notably the Georgia Museum of Art, where in 2002 Martha Daura established the Pierre Daura Center to further appreciation of her father's artistic legacy.
Three years of compulsory Spanish military service on Minorca interrupted Daura's career between 1917 and 1920. On his return to Paris, he took up printmaking and continued to paint while working as a designer and printer of silk dress fabrics. He exhibited periodically with a Catalan artists' group in Barcelona and at galleries in Amsterdam and Paris. In 1929, Daura helped form the artists' group Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square), which promoted geometric construction and abstraction over the perceived irrationality of art based on symbolism from religion, dreams, and the imagination. Although it held only one exhibition, Cercle et Carré included many important emerging modernist artists. Daura himself created abstract compositions but was fundamentally drawn to representation. His use of powerful forms and expressive color was influenced by pioneering modernist Paul Cézanne (1839—1906) and by his friend the American modernist Alfred Maurer (1868—1932); he also found inspiration in the works of the Spanish Renaissance painter known as El Greco (1541—1614) and in cave paintings.
In 1930, Daura and his wife, American painter Louise Blair (1905—72), purchased a thirteenth-century house in St. Cirq-Lapopie, in the Midi-Pyrenées region of southern France, where their only child, Martha, was born. Notable for its preserved medieval character, the town became one of the artist's perennial subjects; he also created still life images, landscapes, and portraits and figure studies of family and friends. Daura first visited the United States in 1934—35, on a family visit to Virginia. In 1937, during his service with the anti-Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War, he was badly wounded. Daura was recovering in France when his Spanish citizenship was revoked at the war's end; he never returned to his native land.
The artist and his family were in Virginia in 1939, when the outbreak of World War II prevented them from returning to Europe. The artist eventually became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at Washington and Lee University, Lynchburg College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College (now Randolph College) until 1953, when he resumed painting fulltime. In 1959, he built a home and studio in Rockbridge Baths, Virginia, and lived alternately there and in St. Cirq-Lapopie until his death at the age of eighty. Although still better known in his native Catalonia than in his adopted country, Daura is well represented in American museums, notably the Georgia Museum of Art, where in 2002 Martha Daura established the Pierre Daura Center to further appreciation of her father's artistic legacy.