CERCLE 5

'The sculptor remains hidden in my soul' Socio de Mérito del Reial Cercle Artístic de Barcelona A la pàgina oposada/En la página opuesta/ On the opposite page Libèl·lula blava/Libélula azul / Blue Dragonfly Jordi Alumà J ordi Alumà was born at six o'clock in the morning on February 26th, 1924, in a well-known street in the centre of Barcelona, near which then was already one of the oldest theatres in the city, the Arnau. It had snowed profusely in the city: traffic was stopped and the city in chaos; something to be expected in a place of such a pleasant climate and little accustomed to such weather situations. These were times of great social and political upheaval. His love of art comes from his background. His paternal grandfather was a draughtsman and lithographer; his maternal grandfather, a bourgeois industrial sculptor; his father, Josep Alumà, was a painter and renowned poster artist, and his mother, whom he unfortunately did not know after she died after birth at the age of 22 years, designed pieces of goldsmithery for her father, Jordi Alumà’s grandfather. It was precisely his Alumà grandfather who bequeathed him a curious and delightful hobby that Jordi Alumà perseveres with: leaving fragile kites made by hand to the wind’s embrace, evoking a longing to be lifted by the air in the middle of space, ever towards the infinite. For this reason, his signature still incorporates a small iconic shape that alludes to this symbolic heritage. One afternoon in 1946, at the age of 22 years, Jordi Alumà decided to become a member of the Artistic Circle, which then had its headquarters in the emblematic Plaça de Catalunya and of which his father had been a member. The artist himself considered himself part of an extinct generation of bohemian barceloneses. He began his artistic studies in 1937, together with the sculptor Coscolla, and in 1941 he joined the Salesian College of Barcelona’s craft workshops, where he started studying the techniques of the altarpiece, becoming an international reference on the topic and working on wood, a practice to which he dedicated himself until 2001, when the artist decided to opt for Japanese paper. For years, he travelled Europe and the United States expanding his training and broadening his contacts. He served as Professor at the Escola de Llotja from 1953 until 1989 and has won numerous awards and honours throughout his life. In the 1960s, he adopted the figurative art that characterises his work most at an international level, going into the theme of the different Olympic disciplines. Given this, his work has been present in large number of top- flight sporting events. In 2000 he received the Cross of St. George, one of the highest distinctions awarded by the Generalitat of Catalonia.