About Galeria Sastre s l
Galería Sastre is an independent gallery based in Sitges, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Founded in 2008 by Santiago Pérez Córdoba, the gallery specializes in carefully selected 20th-century European paintings, with a particular focus on luminous Mediterranean landscapes, figurative works, and artists connected to the School of Paris. Many of the painters represented in our collection worked within the vibrant artistic circles of 20th-century Europe, shaped by the modern traditions that also produced figures such as Pablo Picasso and his contemporaries. Our aim i...Read More

Established in 20071stDibs seller since 2019
Featured Pieces
Catalan Autumn Farmhouse Landscape Oil Painting, Mediterranean Countryside Scene
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Catalan Autumn Farmhouse Landscape Oil Painting, Mediterranean Countryside Scene
Artist: Lluís Puig Barella (1894–1984)
Title: Catalan Autumn Landscape
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensi...
Category
1960s Constructivist Landscape Paintings
Materials
Oil
Colorful Mediterranean Beach Promenade with Café Terraces and Figures Oil Canvas
By Elisabeth Ollé Curiel
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Colorful Mediterranean Beach Promenade with Café Terraces and Figures
Artist: Elisabeth Ollé Curiel
Title: La Playa
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 60 × 73 cm / 23.62 × 28.74 in
Framed dimensions: 78 × 91 cm / 30.71 × 35.83 in
Signature: Signed “Ollé Curiel” lower right
Inscription: Titled “La Playa” on the reverse
Origin: Spain
Style: Fauvist, Expressionist, Mediterranean Modern
Period: Late 20th century
Condition: Good original condition, with minor signs of age and wear consistent with its history
Frame: Presented in its original wooden frame
DESCRIPTION
A vibrant Mediterranean beach scene by Spanish painter Elisabeth Ollé Curiel, depicting a lively seaside promenade filled with café terraces, striped awnings, strolling figures and sunlit architecture overlooking the deep blue sea.
Ollé Curiel constructs the composition through broad, spontaneous brushstrokes and an exuberant palette of turquoise, cobalt blue, emerald green, yellow, red and ochre. The figures and architectural elements are deliberately simplified, creating a rhythmic and highly expressive vision of everyday coastal life.
The large green-and-white café canopy anchors the foreground, while the promenade leads the eye toward the sea and the bright horizon. Rather than offering a literal representation, the artist transforms the beach into a celebration of color, movement and Mediterranean light.
The painting is signed in the lower-right corner and titled “La Playa” on the reverse. Its generous format and vivid chromatic presence make it an excellent statement piece for a contemporary, modernist or Mediterranean-inspired interior.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Elisabeth Ollé Curiel is a Spanish painter and sculptor born in Barcelona in 1960. Her artistic identity is shaped by both her Catalan background and her family connections with Venezuela and the Caribbean.
Her work explores memory, cultural identity, travel and the meeting of different landscapes and traditions. Mediterranean villages, Caribbean settings, urban scenes, music and the human figure frequently appear in her paintings.
Ollé Curiel’s pictorial language combines expressive color, simplified forms and gestural brushwork. Her work reveals affinities with Fauvism, Expressionism and lyrical abstraction while maintaining a distinctive and highly personal character.
Her paintings have been exhibited internationally and are appreciated for their vitality, emotional immediacy and fusion of European and Caribbean visual influences.
PICTORIAL INSPIRATION
The painting reflects the legacy of Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy and the Fauvist tradition, particularly in its liberated use of color, flattened perspective and joyful interpretation of Mediterranean life.
Its energetic brushwork and spontaneous figures also evoke European Expressionism, while the luminous palette and bustling café atmosphere recall the modern coastal scenes painted throughout the French and Spanish Mediterranean during the 20th century.
Mediterranean beach painting, Spanish modern art, colorful seaside painting, beach promenade art, café terrace painting...
Category
1990s Fauvist Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Large Mediterranean Coastal Landscape with Rocky Cove Pine Trees and White House
By Josep María Vilá Cañellas
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Large Mediterranean Coastal Landscape with Rocky Cove, Pine Trees and White Houses
Artist: Josep Maria Vilà Cañellas
Country of origin: Spain
Medium: Oil on canvas
Style: Catalan Po...
Category
1960s Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Materials
Oil
Colorful Modernist Portrait of Two Women in a Mediterranean Interior Oil Canvas
By Miquel Torner de Semir
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Colorful Modernist Portrait of Two Women in a Mediterranean Interior
Artist: Miquel Torner de Semir
Title: Two Women in a Mediterranean Interior
Medium: Oil and mixed media on canvas
Dimensions: 54 × 65 cm / 21.26 × 25.59 in
Orientation: Landscape
Signature: Signed lower right
Frame: Unframed
Country of origin: Spain
Period: Late 20th century
Style: Modernist, Figurative, Neo-Expressionist
Subject: Female figures, portraiture, interior scene, Mediterranean landscape
Condition: Good vintage condition. The surface presents pronounced impasto, visible texture and intentional irregularities characteristic of the artist’s technique.
Description
A vibrant and highly decorative modern figurative painting by Catalan artist Miquel Torner de Semir, depicting two stylized women within a richly textured Mediterranean interior.
The composition presents one standing woman dressed in vivid red, holding a small turquoise object, while a second female figure appears in profile in the foreground. Their pale faces, large expressive eyes, elongated necks and carefully arranged hairstyles create the enigmatic, timeless presence that defines Torner de Semir’s most recognizable paintings.
Behind the figures, the artist constructs a fragmented interior through architectural forms, dark window-like structures and a distant view of white Mediterranean buildings beneath an intense blue sky. The result combines female portraiture, interior painting and Mediterranean landscape within a single layered composition.
Strong black outlines organize the scene into flattened areas of cobalt blue, crimson red, turquoise, ochre, brown and violet. Thick impasto, graphic marks and collage-like passages give the canvas a tactile, almost sculptural surface. The contrast between the monumental figures and the abstracted background creates both decorative impact and psychological tension.
The painting reflects Torner de Semir’s fascination with Catalan Romanesque frescoes, Gothic portraiture, early Renaissance painting and modern European figuration. The frontal poses, hieratic expressions and simplified forms recall medieval religious imagery, transformed here into a colorful and unmistakably contemporary vision of Mediterranean womanhood.
A particularly representative example of the artist’s mature figurative language, combining expressive female portraiture, bold color, textured surfaces and a sophisticated Mediterranean atmosphere. Its compact dimensions and strong visual presence make it especially suitable for a modern interior, eclectic collection or gallery wall.
About the artist
Miquel Torner de Semir was born in Santa Pau, Girona, in 1938. He studied at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts in Barcelona and continued his artistic education at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid. He was also a pupil of Catalan muralist, engraver and illustrator Ricard Marlet.
Torner de Semir developed a deeply personal figurative style rooted in the visual traditions of Catalonia and the wider Mediterranean world. His work draws inspiration from Romanesque mural painting, Gothic art, Italian primitive painters, Renaissance portraiture and the major European artistic movements of the 20th century.
He is especially known for his stylized female figures, characterized by almond-shaped eyes, elongated necks, strongly outlined features and elaborate hairstyles. These mysterious women often inhabit imaginary interiors, theatrical settings or fragmented Mediterranean landscapes.
His compositions combine flattened perspective, saturated color and heavily worked surfaces. Through the use of impasto, graphic lines and collage-like textures, Torner de Semir gives his paintings an almost architectural construction. His figures appear simultaneously ancient and modern, combining the solemnity of medieval icons with the expressive freedom of modern figurative art.
He held his first solo exhibition in Terrassa in 1968 and subsequently exhibited extensively in Spain and abroad, including France, other European countries, the United States and Japan. His distinctive female portraits and Mediterranean compositions have made his work highly recognizable among collectors of Catalan and Spanish modern art.
Pictorial inspiration
The composition evokes the expressive female figures of Pablo Picasso, the chromatic intensity and decorative freedom of Henri Matisse, the poetic atmosphere of Marc Chagall, the elongated elegance of Amedeo Modigliani and the simplified, sculptural forms of Paul Gauguin. Its bold outlines, flattened perspective and Mediterranean palette also connect the work with modern European figurative painting and the tradition of Catalan Romanesque art.
Colorful modernist painting, female portrait painting, two women painting...
Category
1990s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Surrealist Female Portrait with Floral and Lunar Imagery, Spanish Modern Art
By Modest Cuixart i Tàpies
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Surrealist Female Portrait with Floral and Lunar Imagery, Spanish Modern Art
Artist: Modest Cuixart i Tàpies (Barcelona, 1925–Palamós, 2007)
Title: Flor d’Aigua
Date: 1978
Medium: O...
Category
1970s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Mediterranean Woman by the Sea Colorful Expressionist Coastal Painting Oil Spain
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Mediterranean Woman by the Sea, Colorful Expressionist Coastal Painting
Artist: José Antonio Pineda Bueno (Spanish, born 1950)
Title: Rocas y mar
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 2...
Category
Early 2000s Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Intimate reclining woman in blue, modern European figurative interior Oil Canvas
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Intimate reclining woman in blue, modern European figurative interior
Artist: Josep Lloveras i Feliu (Spanish, 1922–2014)
Title: Reclining woman in blue
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimens...
Category
1950s Modern Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Surrealist Mediterranean Rocky Figures and Coastal Fantasy Oil Painting
By Antoni Pitxot
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Surrealist Mediterranean Rocky Figures and Coastal Fantasy Oil Painting
Artist: Antoni Pitxot i Soler (Spanish, 1934–2015)
Title: Rocky Figures i...
Category
1980s Surrealist Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Mediterranean Woman by the Sea Spanish Figurative Oil Canvas Painting European
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Mediterranean Woman by the Sea Spanish Figurative Oil Painting
Artist: José Antonio Pineda Bueno (Spanish, born 1950)
Title: Verano
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 18.1 x 21.7 in....
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Mediterranean Church Square with Figures Spanish Impressionist Oil Painting
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Mediterranean Church Square with Figures Spanish Impressionist Oil Painting
Artist: Joan Roig i Soler (Barcelona, 1852–1909)
Title: Mediterranean Church Square with Figures
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 36 × 32 cm / 14.2 × 12.6 in
Framing: Unframed
Signature: Signed lower right
Period: Late 19th to early 20th century
Country of origin: Spain
Style: Catalan Luminism, Impressionism, Mediterranean painting
Subject: Church square, village architecture, figures, religious procession
Condition: Good antique condition, with age-related wear and surface texture consistent with its period. Please examine the photographs carefully, as they form an integral part of the condition description.
Description
An exceptionally atmospheric Mediterranean village scene by Joan Roig i Soler, one of the founders and leading representatives of the Sitges Luminist School.
The composition depicts a sunlit church square animated by a gathering of villagers dressed in traditional clothing. Several figures appear to carry baskets or offerings, suggesting a local religious celebration, market day or procession taking place outside the church. Whitewashed houses, balconies, green shutters and warm ochre façades frame the scene, creating an evocative image of everyday life in a historic Spanish coastal town.
Roig i Soler constructs the view through loose, confident brushwork and a luminous palette of pale blues, creams, rose, ochre and muted green. The broad foreground and diagonal shadows guide the eye towards the group assembled beside the church entrance, while the vivid Mediterranean sky gives the entire painting a radiant, open-air atmosphere.
The contrast between the sunlit architecture and the compact crowd demonstrates the artist’s ability to combine landscape, urban architecture and costumbrista figure painting. Rather than describing every individual in detail, Roig i Soler uses rapid touches of colour to create movement, light and social energy. The result is spontaneous and highly decorative, yet also historically evocative.
Works showing populated streets and village squares are especially desirable within Roig i Soler’s production, as they unite his celebrated treatment of Mediterranean light with a vivid record of Catalan and Spanish daily life. Its intimate format also makes the painting particularly suitable for a salon wall, study, library or carefully assembled collection of European Impressionist art.
Artist biography
Joan Roig i Soler was born in Barcelona in 1852 and became one of the most important Catalan landscape painters of the late 19th century. He studied at the Escola de la Llotja in Barcelona and trained under Modest Urgell, one of the leading Spanish landscape painters of his generation.
After travelling through France and Italy, Roig i Soler settled for extended periods in Sitges, where he worked alongside Arcadi Mas i Fondevila. Together they became central figures in the development of the Sitges Luminist School, a pioneering movement devoted to plein-air painting, Mediterranean light and direct observation of nature.
The Sitges Luminists moved away from academic historical painting and focused instead on beaches, ports, village streets, churches and everyday life. Their experiments with natural light anticipated important aspects of Catalan Modernism and helped establish Sitges as one of the principal artistic centres of Spain.
Roig i Soler painted throughout Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, including Sitges, Barcelona, Blanes, Tossa de Mar, Cadaqués, Camprodon and Mallorca. His work is admired for its luminous colour, animated brushwork and sensitive depiction of Mediterranean architecture and coastal atmosphere.
He participated in major exhibitions in Barcelona, Madrid, Zaragoza and Paris and served as a jury member at the 1888 Barcelona Universal Exposition. His paintings are represented in important public collections, including the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and the museums of Sitges.
Artistic inspiration
The luminous treatment of architecture and atmosphere recalls the Mediterranean clarity of Joaquín Sorolla, while the lively arrangement of figures and spontaneous plein-air brushwork evokes Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro. The elegant observation of everyday urban life also connects the work with John Singer Sargent and the Venetian street scenes of Maurice Prendergast, filtered through the distinctive light and vernacular architecture of Catalonia.
Joan Roig i Soler, Spanish Impressionist painting, Catalan Luminist painting, Mediterranean village painting, Spanish church painting...
Category
1890s Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Mediterranean Catalan Farmhouse Landscape Impressionist Oil Painting Spain Art
By Joan Asensio Marine
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Mediterranean Catalan Farmhouse Landscape Impressionist Oil Painting
Artist: Joaquín Asensio Mariné (Barcelona, 1890–1961)
Title: Rural Farmyard in Montseny
Medium: Oil on canvas
Pa...
Category
1930s Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Materials
Oil
Mediterranean Catalan Hermitage and Cypress Landscape Oil Painting Spain
Located in Sitges, Barcelona
Mediterranean Catalan Hermitage and Cypress Landscape Oil Painting
Artist: Francesc Galofré Surís (Barcelona, 1900–Les Borges del Camp, 1986)
Title: Hermitage of Santa Marina, Pratd...
Category
1970s Modern Landscape Paintings
Materials
Oil

