Xavier Prat Riquelme was born in the Miraflores neighbourhood of Lima, Peru, in July, 1957. His parents had left Spain for political and personal reasons, travelling to France and Ecuador before arriving in the capital of Peru in 1952.
During their childhood, Xavier and his brother Jordi went to various schools in Lima. In 1964 their father died unexpectedly, which brought their mother to return to Barcelona, where an older brother was studying medicine. After arriving in 1966, when Xavier was 9 and Jordi 11, they were registered for school at the Col·legi Sant Gregori. Xavier was decisively influenced by his drawing instructor, Esther Boix, and his interest in painting grew. Later on, the brothers went to secondary school and then university, where Xavier graduated in philosophy and humanities.
Prat was deeply committed to the world of culture, aligning himself with various artistic and literary movements. In 1976 he was one of the founding members of the Taller Literari de Sitges [Sitges Literary Workshop], directed by José Donoso. At that time, he also began to work in the chalcographic engraving workshops of Joan Barbarà and Ferrer/Puiggrós, which he continued to do from 1977 to 1982. These printmaking workshops had hosted leading artists, such as Miró, Tàpies, Cuixart, Ràfols-Casamada and Subirachs.
In 1978 he did his first individual exhibition of drawings at the Taller-Galeria Argot, in Barcelona. Later, in 1979, he worked in public relations at the Almirall art gallery, also in Barcelona. His close ties to the Barcelona artistic and creative scene of the time led him, in 1980, to begin writing as an art and literature critic in the culture sections of various magazines and newspapers, such as El Correo Catalán, Quart Creixent and Vibraciones.
Starting in 1981, he set out on a new professional path, working as an artistic director in the film industry, as Prats collaborated with various advertising and documentary producers. Finally, with his contacts in the world of stagecraft, he worked creating models and prototypes for various spectacles by La Fura dels Baus (such as the opening ceremony for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games).
In 1981 he participated in the group show Modelos para una fiesta [Models for a Party], at Ovidio gallery in Madrid, together with various artists linked to the Madrid Movida, such as El Hortelano, Ceesepe, Guillermo Pérez Villalta and Sigfrido Martín Begué. That same year he had a solo show at La Rocca Gallery in Turin, Italy.
In 1982 he did a show, curated by Josep Miquel García, at the Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs in Lleida; it was the most important of his career. That same year he met Maria Rosa Herrero Carbó, Pitu, who would become his partner and the mother of his children. They lived in Barcelona at no. 8 Maria Cristina Street, near the port, and many of his paintings from the period have maritime themes.
From 1988 to 1989 he was the artistic director and coordinator of the City of Barcelona campaign Vine al Mercat, Reina [Come to the Market, my Dear], promoting Community Centres and the Boqueria Market. In 1990 he participated in Antoni Miralda’s The Honeymoon Project, at the Fundació Joan Miró. In 1992 he did his final exhibition while still alive, at B’Art La Ruïna in Palamós.
The exhibition presented here is structured into five thematic sections. The show’s curator, Sergio Vila-Sanjuán, enlivens the person and career of Xavier Prat, a key artist in Catalan New Figuration during the 1970s and 1980s. This initiating journey offers visitors some 70 pieces, many of them never seen before, while others are being shown for the first time in many (all too many) years.