Eliseu Meifrèn

Eliseu Meifrèn i Roig (24 December 1857/59, Barcelona - 5 February 1940, Barcelona) was a Catalonian Impressionist painter.

Following his passion for art, he gave up the study of medicine and enrolled at the Escola de la Llotja, where his teachers were Antoni Caba and Ramon Martí Alsina. In 1879, he went to Paris and supported his studies by selling small canvases and sketches of cityscapes. His style was, however, decisively influenced by a brief tour of Italy. Upon his return to Spain in 1881, he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts.

The following year, he married, honeymooned in Paris, and settled there. His first personal exhibition came in 1890 at the Sala Parés in Barcelona, where he presented seventy oils and surprised everyone by auctioning off the works that did not sell, with his friend Santiago Rusiñol acting as the appraiser. He used the proceeds to return to Italy.

In 1892, he went back to Paris and began to associate with the Impressionists, producing changes in his use of colors. Five years later, he accepted an invitation from the President of the "Gabinete Literario", and moved to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. His home there became a makeshift art academy, where Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre was one of his students.

His fame peaked at the turn of the century, with exhibitions in South America as well as Europe. However, after the commercial failure of his works at the "Real Círculo Artístico de Barcelona", he decided to move to Buenos Aires. He arrived there in 1903, held his first exhibition shortly after and organized a large exposition of Catalonian painters in 1904, including five pastels by Pablo Picasso. In 1905, he was offered the position of Director at the "Escola de d´Arts i Oficis de Palma" on Mallorca, accepted, and moved again.

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