Josep Martinez Lozano

Spanish castle landscape oil on board painting

c.1970

Josep Martinez Lozano carried out his artistic studies at the Escola d'Arts i Oficis del Clot, in Barcelona (1937). There he received the first and most basic notions of drawing by Sabadellense professor Doménech Soler. Later, Lozano became a disciple of Ramón Sanvicens and Joaquim Terruella. He served military service in Figueres shortly after the end of World War II, when the country was going through a difficult postwar period. His first individual exhibition took place in Figueres, in Can Fortunet, in 1946. Before the praise that his painting awakened, he acted prudently, knowing the dangers of being carried away by the fame that was new to him. During his stay in Figueres, he got in touch with different personalities of the cultural and artistic life of the Empordà capital and it was at that moment that he began his special relationship with Empordà and specifically with Llançà. Among his friends of that time are the watercolorist Ramon Reig, the journalist Manuel Brunet and Josep M. Fortunet. In 1951, Lozano obtained a scholarship from the Diputación de Girona that took him to Venice. There he made friends with the eight-center painter Giuseppe Quirubini and the aesthetic emotions of the city and its canals will enrich his palette. The same year, he performed individually in Barcelona for the first time, in the Sala Gaspar, with a selection of his Venetian work. Also in 1951, he made the first exhibition in Madrid and then established workshops in Montblanc, Tarragona and Llançà. In Llançà, Lozano founded the Escola d'Arts i Oficis, as he had already done in Campo de Criptana in La Mancha. His relationship with Llançà is so intense since that time, that in 1988, he established there the foundation that bears his name and a museum of Watercolor, endowed with his works and other painters. In 1963, Lozano participated in the Biennial of Painting, Premi Ciutat de Terrassa. He was still a stranger in the city, and his painting was relegated to a secondary room. \His relationship with Terrassa began that same year, precisely at the same time that the city began its period of excessive growth and faced a great wave of immigration that will transform it decisively in a few years. Paradoxically, it was in that industrial city then surrounded by suburbs, where you would find an artistic atmosphere and sensitivity, as well as a nucleus of friends, who will seduce you. For all that, in 1965, Lozano settled in Terrassa with his family permanently. From that moment he alternated his residence in Terrassa and Llançà (he used to spend half a week indoors, and the other half by the sea), with his trips to France, Belgium, Romania, Portugal, Great Britain, Italy, Malaysia, Guatemala ... Lozano was an inveterate traveling painter. His first study of Terrassa was in Sant Llorenç street, relatively close to the headquarters of the Amics de les Arts, an entity in which it will be integrated very early and that constitutes the nerve center of the Tarragona cultural life. Later, Lozano moved to a larger studio, in the street that at that time bore the name of Martinez Anido. And finally, when he needed to turn the workshop into the family home, he settled in Teatre Street where, until recently, he still had the studio (where he used to work normally at night) Since then, his relationship with the city has become increasingly closer. Lozano used to make an exhibition for the benefit of the Hospital de Sant Llàtzer and shortly thereafter, together with Josep Boix, he published a book on the streets of Terrassa. The money obtained went to the same hospital. In May of 1969, Lozano began his famous trip from La Mancha to Terrassa, with the donkey "Sandalio", which became a small myth in the artistic life of Tarragona. In 1971, he was awarded the "Quixot" prize by the local press, which distinguishes his quixotic personal and artistic career. In 1972, Lozano was awarded the "Terrassenc de l'any" award, in recognition of his civic career. In 1975, he made a representative donation of his pictorial work to the city. Thus, the Martínez Lozano Room opens at the Alegre de Sagrera House-Museum. In 1989, he made a second donation of artistic work to the city of Terrassa. The same year 1989 was created in Llançà, the Martínez Lozano Watercolor-Foundation Museum, which was initially nourished by a donation by the painter of more than 100 works from different European watercolorists. At that time, it became the only museum in Europe intended exclusively for watercolor. In 1991, Pepe decided to organize and found the National Watercolor Symposiums that have been held throughout the Spanish state (Córdoba, Montblanc, Bilbao, Jaca ...). In 2001, Lozano made a second donation of 36 works to the Watercolor Museum, on the occasion of his new location in the facilities of the House of Culture of Llançà. In 2004, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi named him academic for Llançà. During these years, life continued to alternate between the populations of Llançà, Montblanc and Terrassa. It was in this last city where, in 2003, he left the study of Teatre street number 8; Hotel Don Candido gave him room 509 so he could continue your relationship with the city.In January 2006, the City Council of Terrassa named him an adopted son of the city in a ceremony that, without knowing it, will be the last act he attended. On June 7, 2006, Lozano died of an illness in his house in Llançà surrounded by his family. Two days later, his friends fired him in the church of Sant Vicenç de Llançà.