C0107

Ceramic frieze at the Celler Cooperatiu del Pinell de Brai. Section above the low door

Ref Num.: C0107

Date: 1920-1921

Typology: Ceramics

Technique: Painted ceramics

Dimensions: –

Signed: No signed and dated

Terra Alta, Pinell de Brai

From 1920 to 1921 Xavier Nogués worked on the decorations for the façade of the cooperative winery and olive press, the Celler i Cooperativa Agrícola de Pinell de Brai (Terra Alta, Tarragona), consisting of different ceramic panels and friezes on wine-related themes and about olive oil production. The building had been planned and designed by the architect Cèsar Martinell and became known as the “cathedral of wine”. The frieze on the winery façade is the longest and features scenes about the wine-making process, a theme Nogués was particularly fond of and revisited throughout his life.

There is a ceramic frieze featuring several figures alluding to wine above the low doorway leading into the winery. On the left, we see a man sitting with a basket of grapes and a wine-drinking vessel between his legs, stretching out his arm to pick a pine cone from a pine tree, which is the main symbol on the coat of arms of the Sindicat Agrícola. On the right-hand side is another man sitting on a wine barrel holding a glass. Image rights: Dani Rovira. With kind permission of the Cooperativa del Celler Pinell de Brai.

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Rafael Benet, Xavier Nogués. Caricaturista y pintor, Ediciones Omega, Barcelona, 1949, cat. Porcelana, ceràmica, p. 93 and p. 14. J. Barbeta, A. Casanovas, M. Gil and C. Vidal, Exposición Xavier Nogués, Barcelona 1873-1941, Palacio de la Virreina, March-April 1967, Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, Museos de Arte, Barcelona, 1967, cat. no. 548, p. 59 and cat. no. 1269, p. 97. Cèsar Martinell, Destino, no. 1272, 23rd December 1961. Cecília Vidal Maynou (dir.), Xavier Nogués (1873-1941), Alfa Books, Fundació Xavier Nogués, Barcelona, 2021, pp. 193-197.