Artist · 9 prints
Josep Tapiró Baró Prints
About Josep Tapiró Baró
Josep Tapiró i Baró was a Catalan painter, born in Reus, Spain, in 1836 and died in Tangier, Morocco, in 1913. A childhood friend of the painter Marià Fortuny, he studied at the Llotja school in Barcelona and with Federico de Madrazo in Madrid, then joined Fortuny in Rome in 1862, where he learned watercolour and turned to everyday scenes.
A trip to Tangier with Fortuny in 1871 changed his life. Josep Tapiró settled there in the 1870s and lived in the city for almost forty years, becoming one of the great watercolour painters of Orientalism, the European tradition of painting North Africa and the Middle East. He is best known for close, lifelike portraits of local people, Sufi holy men, dancers and brides, painted with a precision that has been called almost scientific. His Parache the Dancer (about 1895–1900) is in the Museo del Prado, and in 2014 the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya held an exhibition of his work.
Josep Tapiró Baró prints: reproductions of the Orientalist watercolour portraits Catalan painter Josep Tapiró Baró made in Tangier, Morocco, in the late nineteenth century. Works in the collection include Berber Bride (1896), Moorish Elder (1885), Moorish Man II (1890), The Holy Man and Young Woman in a Jewelled Headdress.
This selection is made up of Tapiró's close portraits of men and women in Tangier: a bride, a musician, a holy man and elders in caps, turbans and headdresses. Each is painted in fine detail, with careful attention to faces, beards, jewellery and textiles.
The detailed portraits suit studies, libraries, hallways and dining rooms, and two or three hung side by side make a strong group. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with low-glare acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
