Background
Planells was born in Cadaqués, Spain, on December 2, 1901.
Planells was born in Cadaqués, Spain, on December 2, 1901.
Àngel Planells moved to Barcelona in 1918, in order to learn engraving and lithography while attending classes in drawing at academy. However, his training was interrupted due to financial problems.
In 1920 Planells moved from Barcelona to Cadaqués. At the beginning of the 1920s, he started to produce drawings of fantastic and imaginary nature, witches, and monsters. There he got acquainted with such artists as Salvador Dalí, Eliseu Meifrèn, Joan Roig i Soler. His first oil works were mainly influenced by Feliú Elías. Later he started to paint his artworks in a Cubist style, and after meeting Dalí, he joined the Surrealist art movement. From 1928 to 1929 Àngel Planells took part in his first collective exhibitions, which were held in the Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona and in Girona. When in Cadaqués the painter met René Magritte and several other surrealist artists. With the help of Magritte, Planells published his paintings in European magazines.
Àngel Planells lived in Blanes since 1929. There he served as a professor at the School of Arts. In 1930 his first solo show was organized in the Dalmau Galleries. Along with such artists as Artur Carbonell i Carbonell, Àngel Ferrant, Esteve Francés, A. Gamboa-Rothwoss, A. G. Lamolla, Ramon Marinello, Maruja Mallo, Jaume Sans, Nàdia Sokalova, and art critic Magí Cassanyes, Planells became a follower of the Logicofobista group starting from 1936. The first exhibition of the group was held in Barcelona in the year 1936. The same year, three of Planells' works were presented at the London International Surrealist Exhibition.
After the end of the Spanish Civil War, Planells mainly created landscape and still life artworks. In 1974 Àngel Planells decided to return to Surrealism. Many of his paintings were characterized by a strong sexual content and in most of the beings he painted, the limbs and heads were often replaced by contraptions.
Starting from the 1970s Àngel Planells exhibited his paintings at a number of major museums, including the Municipal Museum of Cadaqués (1987), the museum of Ampurdán (1980) and the Pineda del Mar in 1989.
El somni viatja
El mar desconegut
Bodegón mitificado
El fantasma rosa
Dona i cap d’home
Amenitats de la vida quotidiana
Acordeonista
Playa inexplorada
Los extraños jugadores
Pintura surrealista
La mirada del espía
La casa fantasmal
Objetos en la pared
Amenitat d’un bosc
Dolor de mediodía
El somni de la voluntat ferida
Caminen plegats el desasre i el somni
Hamlet
Crimen Perfecto
Abstraccio d’un rostre
El jugador fantasma
La señora impúdica
L´hora de més quietut
Aparell de fisica desconeguda
Sueño olvidado
Enigma i calma sobre el mar
Dos ulls i paparina
Verano, Paisaje de Olot
Paisaje en la Costa
Vistas del Cap de Creus
Bodegón con libros
Àngel Planells was full of angst. He was a shy, introverted person, who was driven by visions from his imagination and dreams.