JOAN PONÇ BONET (Barcelona, 1927 - Saint-Paul, France, 1984). "Sint itulo". Circa 1954 Oil on wood. Signed in the lower left corner. This work is published in the artist s online catalogue raisonné, ref. 0176. Size: 110 x 53 cm; 126 x 68 cm (frame). Ponç defined himself as a sorcerer artist, conceiving art as an incantation, something magical. This is palpable in each of his works, whether they are dreamlike landscapes or figures which, like the one we are dealing with here, seem to emerge from a parallel reality. A painter and draughtsman, he trained in Barcelona, in the studio of Ramón Rogent and at the Academy of Plastic Arts with Ángel López-Obrero. After devoting himself to painting and drawing in anonymity, he held his first individual exhibition in 1946, at the Galería Arte in Bilbao, which was to be his definitive establishment on the national art scene. In 1948, together with Tharrats, Puig, Cuixart, Tàpies and Brossa, among others, he founded the avant-garde group Dau al Set. Selected by Eugenio D Ors, he took part in the Salón de los Once in Madrid in 1951 and 1952. In 1952 he took part in the Hispano-American Biennial, and the following year he spent some time in Paris, where he met Joan Miró and managed to exhibit at the Musée de la Villa. On the latter s recommendation, Ponç gained access to Brazilian artistic circles, settling in São Paulo from 1953 to 1962. In 1954, the year Dau al Set disbanded, he held an exhibition at the city s Museum of Modern Art, which was so successful that the organisation acquired all his works. In Brazil he visited the equatorial jungles, where he was impressed by their fauna, especially insects, which he incorporated into his imagery. In 1955 he founded the Taüll group with Marc Aleu, Modest Cuixart, Jaume Guinovart, Jaume Muxart, Mercadé, Tàpies and Tharrats. After returning to Catalonia due to illness, as a fully established artist he shows his work in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Bonn, Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva, Antibes and various Spanish cities. In 1965 he won the International Grand Prize for Drawing at the São Paulo Biennial. Ponç s production can be divided into six periods: the Dau al Set period (1947), the Brazilian period (1958), the metaphysical-geometric period (1969), the metaphysical characters period (1970), the acupainting period (1971) and a final period of synthesis (1972).