Pablo (Pau) Roïg 1879 - 1955

A painter and printmaker, Pau Roïg Cisa was born in Premià de Mar in 1879. He completed art studies at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona in 1896, represented by an oil painting entitled ‘Una Flor’.

He became a member of the Circles of ‘Saint Luch’ and of Artistico, and set out for Madrid, where he devoted his time to copying Velázques. In 1901 and 1902 he lived and worked in Paris, exhibition his work at the National Salon and the Salon des Indépendants. In 1903 he traveled through Andalucia and Castilla. Back in Paris, he devoted himself to pastel drawing, influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas.

He became, under the auspices of his food friend and fellow Spaniard Dario de Regoyos, a member of La Libre Esthétique, the Belgian art nouveau movement founded in 1893 to succeed Cercle des XX. Roïg’s name is recorded as an exhibitor in the 1903, 1911, and 1914 catalogues of the Salon de la Libre Esthétique in Brussels.

In 1911, Roïg published ‘Cirque’, a series of lithographs of circus scenes, showing the influence of Japanese art and Toulouse-Lautrec.