Originally from Olot, Josep Clarà moved after his training to live in Paris. There, his reference was Auguste Rodin and his sculptural work drew on symbolism to express human emotions through volume. Later on, influenced by Maillol, he developed his work to classic and Mediterranean styles linked to Noucentism. The Greco-Latin references, formal synthesis and purifying volumes led to an idealization of bodies and faces during the 1930s, the decade when he returned to Catalonia. Back in his homeland, Clarà undertook projects for public spaces and his career culminated with some monumental works based on the search for beauty.
A self-taught painter of portraits, bullfighting scenes and urban visions full of expressionism, energetic colours and dense textures that make up his first artworks up until the early eighties. Later, the colours are attenuated within compositions that explore the fast, calligraphic stroke and the pointillism or dripping. At the beginning of the nineties, his career took a turn towards the abstract current, with blurred images that allude to novelistic literature.
