Josep Llimona i Bruguera

Josep Llimona i Bruguera (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛb ʎiˈmonə]) (8 April 1864 in Barcelona – 27 February 1934), was a Catalan sculptor. His first works were academic, but after a stay in Paris, influenced by Auguste Rodin, his style drew closer to modernisme. He was very prolific, and exhibited in Catalonia, Madrid, Paris, Brussels and Buenos Aires. Some of his monumental work is familiar to Barcelona residents and visitors alke.

He studied at the Llotja school and in the studio of the brothers Agapit and Venaci Vallmitjana. He was also a disciple of Rossend Nobas, with whom he worked for two years, and the painter Martí i Alsina, in the school of fine arts in Barcelona. When he was 16 years old he obtained a Fortuny grant, awarded by the City Council, and moved to Rome, where as well as producing the works that were mandatory under the terms of his grant, he made an initial model for an equestrian statue of the count of Barcelona Ramon Berenguer the Great. This work earned Llimona the renewal of his grant for a further month, enabling him to remodel the statue at its definitive scale.

The work was shown at the Exposición Universal de Barcelona (1888), where it won a gold medal, the highest award given by the international jury for sculpture. The original became the property of the City Council, in return for the modest amount of the grant (3,600 pesetas) and it can now be seen in the Barcelona square named after the count. Almost at the same time Llimona won a competition for a statue of Ramon Berenguer the Elder, which, cast in bronze, is amongst the monuments which stand in the Saló de Sant Joan in Barcelona, and in spite of sending in his work late, he won a resounding moral victory in the competition held in Reus (Tarragona) for an equestrian statue of general Joan Prim i Prats.

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