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Ricard Giralt Miracle: Fifty Years of Graphic Creation
Press release
Ricard Giralt Miracle: Fifty Years of Graphic Creation
The exhibition Ricard Giralt Miracle: Fifty Years of Graphic Creation will open on Thursday 28 October at 8 pm at the Fundació Joan Miró’s Espai 10 in Barcelona.
The show pays tribute to Giralt Miracle’s intense creative activity in the field of poster design, the world of books, alphabet and brand design, commercial printing, typographic experimentation and bibliophilia.
Born in Barcelona in 1911, he learned drawing and lettering from his father, a famous engraver and lithographer. After finishing primary school, he entered the world of graphic arts under the tutelage of Artur Martorell at the Seix i Barral studio – alongside Joan Seix – where he eventually became the studio’s director.
His artistic training included the Llotja, the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc and the Ateneo Enciclopédico Popular, where he was taught by Josep-Lluís [sic] Sert.
He worked on the graphic design for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition and on numerous advertising creations in the 1930s. A few days before the Civil War broke out, he won first prize in a poster competition organised by the Association for the Defence of Catalan Education. During the war, he designed several posters for the Government of Catalonia.
After exile and concentration camps, he returned to his work as an illustrator, specialising in book covers and advertising posters. In 1947, he founded Filograf, a purely artisanal graphic studio, from which he developed a prolific output of printed works that ranged from card production to the bibliophile world.
Heir to the Noucentista spirit and its demand for a well-made work, he combined technical resources with the most free and exquisite artistic sensibility, resulting in a distinctive and unmistakable printing style within the graphic arts.
Filograf worked for such renowned publishers as Josep Janés, the publishing house of Lluís Miracle, Aymá, Argos, Omega, Noguer, Destino, Gaya Ciencia, and so on. He also printed several editions of the magazine Dau al Set, as well as books and catalogues for Miró, Tàpies, Cuixart and others, or for writers such as Foix, Espriu, Segarra, Manent, Perucho, etc.
In the 1950s, he designed many posters for the Barcelona Fair, Mercè Festival, FAD, Book Day, Grupo R., etc. He also promoted with great success the first Christmas card competitions through Filograf. In 1953, he founded and directed PEN, a publishing house dedicated to artistic themes.
Every year, he produced ‘small plaques’ that he distributed to his clients and friends at Christmas or during the summer. These distilled his typographic language, combining antique engravings with an extensive range of graphic superimpositions and colour tones.
Of the various typefaces he designed, the most famous was ‘Gaudí’, which was awarded the Delta de Oro by the ADI/FAD in 1962. His work has been published in foreign magazines such as Gebrauchsgraphik, Graphis, Modern Publicity, Print, Idea, Who’s Who in Graphic Art, among others.
He was awarded the FAD Gold Medal in 1980 in recognition of his work.
The aim of this exhibition is to bring together a selection of Giralt Miracle’s different works from each period in order to provide an overview of his career and evolution – beginning from the spirit of the 1920s to the present day – without abandoning the understanding that all graphic creation is another manifestation of the work of art.
