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Storage Room insight: «Veiled Woman's Head» and «Woman's Head», by Maria Llimona
01 / 09 / 2025

This month, you can find the sculptures Veiled Woman's Head and Woman's Head by Maria Llimona, one of the few artists who enjoyed recognition and public presence during the first decades of the post-war period in Catalonia, in the Storage Room insight.


She was the daughter of sculptor Josep Llimona and sister of painter Rafael Llimona, which meant that art and artistic creation were part of her everyday life and reality. However, her artistic vocation did not come until she was forty-three, as a result of her experiences during the Civil War, which influenced her decision to devote herself to sculpture.


She began her career as a sculptor in northern Italy, near Genoa, where she went into exile with her husband, the painter Domènec Carles. She began her apprenticeship in sculpture with Rodolfo Castagnino, a sculptor who lived near Rapallo. Llimona started from scratch, but quickly learned to use the tools necessary to create her works. Thus, when she returned to Catalonia at the end of the war, she had already established herself as an artist of unquestionable quality.


Maria Llimona saw sculpture as a way of escaping the harsh reality caused by the Civil War, and found in art a means of overcoming those experiences.