This website prays posthumous homage to Jaume Gubianas Jovés, a man who devoted all his life to the Art of Painting from life. Thanks to his perseverance and effort, he would spend time drawing at the same time that he would make his hobby become his profession.
The age of 18 years, it began to participate in numerous acts and exhibitions, and from 1942 to 1950, given its artistic qualities it was able to be an credited sketcher.
He wished to remain anonymous, concentrated on his activities both as a drawing teacher and as a textile painter and drawer. He did not want to waste his short spare time with the aim of gaining notoriety and taking a relevant place in the artistic world,since it was not a matter of importance for him.
Giving preference to my principles, I am determined to open the window for you to lean out and have the chance of observing and enjoying his exquisite work. I try to achieve the place to which he would have corresponded those days, and which he undoubtedly deserves today.
Santiago Gubianas.
Most people, I myself to take an obvious example, probably would not be interested in the life and work of a particular artist if it was not by someone that offers us the chance. I want to cooperate in the publication of a person’s legacy, with whom I shared many experiences, through which I was taught essential values of life, and which helped me to enjoy life. He held me in his arms while the first beatings of my heart and we hold hands while his latest. Hence, my comments are sincere, though subjective.
I remember him lively and educated, I loved listening to him. When he was in the prime of life, I keep the image of a tall man, with white beard and rosy cheeks.
Looking like a bohemian, he always wore a cap and, while smoking a pipe, he carried a briefcase plenty of watercolours, a tripod and a collapsible chair. He remained motionless for hours, watching his objective until he managed to stop the time in order to reflect a fixed image from a changing dimension. This odd ability to depict in a picture something that varies as time goes by always astonished me.
The palette and the paintbrush were the instruments he used to capture in a canvas the combination of his senses when observing and enjoying nature. Painting is the door which opens our soul and, wide open, digs a path for us to reach the infinite feelings. I am pleased to share the passion I have for painting as well as the admiration I feel for the one who gives us the opportunity to know moments and places, inaccessible otherwise.
Each picture is not only a research on the detailed features of a face or of a landscape, but it is also a proposal of what the painter sees and what it transmits him. In any case, it is fascinating to contemplate how those faces and landscapes change, but above all, it is fascinating to contemplate the trace hidden behind each and every one of his pictures -which makes every artist different from each other-, which is his Personality.
I would like to seize the opportunity to mention to his wife Susi, muse and source of inspiration sometimes and accomplice many others. She had always been his loyal comrade.
I tried to be on the same level of my mind and to express my ideas in this writing, which I believe is an ambitious purpose as well as a very gratifying challenge.
Manuel Aguilar.
It was a very cold and hazy winter morning, while the painte shrunken by the cold was sat down in a very small chair - near the river of Olesa de Bonesvalls-, a man was approaching him little by little and, when he was only a few metres from the painter, he exclaimed ‘Good morning!’. Just after, while returning to where he came from, he shouted ‘I told you so. It isn’t an olive, but a painter…you owe me a beer’!
For sure, it was because of the painter’s olive colour jacket that those men confused him with a tree. However, what really made those men become confused was the time at which the painter was painting, very early in the morning.
This anecdote is a reflection of Jaume Gubianas’ personality. He was a hardworking, persistent, disciplined and critical man. He always told me the words of the maestro Pau Casals: “If any day I do not play, I notice. If they are two, my wife does, and if more than three days, the audience realizes it”. I met the painter in 1990 and, until his dead in 2001, I would count on the fingers of a hand the days he did not paint. “Whether it is Sunday or Christmas Eve, the sun will rise anyway” he argued.
Even in the latest days of his life, he painted “notes” as he said. Within these ten years of friendship, he painted each and every one of the corners of the Verdera and the Oliveretes areas from Viladecans, where we used to coincide with each other. He painted in oils, in watercolours and in charcoal. When my grandfather pruned the grapevine, he burnt the vine shoots, of which he made charcoals in order to draw. Where one could simply see a common pea, he was able to go further and see a ‘masterpiece’ of Nature, which he would modestly reflect either in a canvas or in a sheet of paper.
In this area of Viladecans, which in the near future will regrettably become concrete and blocks, we sat down under the hundred-year-old fig trees and, as if it was a Greek forum, we had very valuable and thoughtful conversations. He taught me lots of interesting things which one cannot learn in any other place, and which very few people can actually teach you. Apart from a painter, he was an authentic humanist. “ The one who only knows about medicine does not even know anything about medicine” he told me very often, quoting Dr. Letamendi’s words.
The latest painter’s pictures are depictions of the Oliveretes and the Verdera areas, which are an authentic treasure. Oils, above all, are of extreme quality to which I have to add a sentimental value. He was respectful with the sunlight, he never devoted more than two hours in a row to the same picture, since the light contributes to the final result. Unlike his contemporaries, who preferred to create abstract shapes and who became famous, not believing in their art -earning money, though-, he did not want painting become his profession. Apart from giving lessons, he decided to remain anonymous and keep his own clear and personal principles, which are patent in many of the pictures we can see today.
Jordi Mazon.
MEMOIRS
He was born the 25th December in 1923, in the bosom of the family coming from Manresa. He was the last but one of all his siblings.
Since he was just a child he already had the passion for painting. He wanted to reflect everything he saw on a peace of paper. However, due to his parents’ financial problems, they could not afford the expenses that this hobby implied. For this reason, any bit of a newspaper, for instance, would be usefull to draw. Experimenting with new materials would lead him to create his paintings on many different kinds of support, among others, sandpaper,. Animals was Jaime’s favourite topic at that time.
As time went by, his interest in this art was increasingly stronger untill the point of becoming a real obsession. He refused many jobs he had been offered, social relationships and everything that would prevent him from developing his artistic vocation.
Eventually, he found some jobs related to art as time passed by. In the mornings, he would be a draughstman in a textile company, and he would be a drawing teacher in the evenings. Every day, as soon as he got home after his long working day, he would prepare all the compounds to have everything ready to paint. He would paint every Saturday and Sunday morning and also on holiday time. Nevertheless, he would devote Sunday afternoons to spending the time with his family, however, he would always find a reason to make any note.
I will not tell the result of all these events mentioned above, since I am certain that you will be able to see it better in the following paintings. See the ” Art Gallery ”
PHOTO ALBUM
JAUME GUBIANAS JOVÉS PHOTOS. PAINTING. √ View >>>
JAUME GUBIANAS JOVÉS. VIST PER ALTRES ARTISTES. √ View >>>
Last Thursday, the 7th of May, 2009 the Platform Salvem Oliveretes produced a posthumous honoring to Jaime Gubianas Jovés. There was projected the last short realized masterfully by Didac, wonderful video that travels for the life of this artist across his works, testimony of the beauty of a place that we have closely together: Les Oliveretes in Viladecans (Barcelona).
VÍDEO HOMENATGE DE WWW.SALVEMOLIVERETES.ORG A JAUME GUBIANAS JOVÉS.
Donwnload video for personal use HERE >>> ( 67.9 Mb català, próximament english ).
BYE MISTER GUBI
From the year 1949 it did not put name to any painting except to this one and according to the opposing sketches
titled it like farewell:
” Good-bye Mister Gubi “
” Mister Gubi ” : Així l’anomenaven les seves alumnes.
ACLARACIÓ.
En totes les pàgines ens referirem al pintor com a:
Jaume Gubianas Jovés
per evitar la confusió a la xarxa amb:
Jaume Gubianas Escudé
també artista i gran il·lustrador actual de fama mundial.Si vostè ha entrat per error en aquest web i volia visitar el d’en Jaume Gubianas Escudé ho pot fer clicant el següent enllaç: www.jaumegubianas.com
S.O.S. Delta del LLobregat.
