Pierre Daura
He was born on Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, a few days before his parents returned to their home in Barcelona and registered his birth there as February 21, 1896.
[7] At age fourteen, with his young friends Emili Bosch i Roger and Agapit Vidal Salichs, he set up a studio and sold his first painting at his inaugural exhibition to the Catalan artist and collector Eduard Pascual Monturiol, who said it reminded him of Paul Cézanne's work.
[11] From 1917 to 1920, Daura served his three years of compulsory Spanish military service on Menorca and then returned to Paris[12] In 1923, whilst painting a mural in Normandy, the scaffolding collapsed.
[13] From 1925 to 1927, Daura and Gustavo Cochet, an Argentine artist, designed and made batik material for couturiers, until fire destroyed their studio and business.
[17] In 1929–30, Daura joined Michel Seuphor and Torres-Garcia in organizing the group Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square), which promoted geometric construction and abstraction in opposition to Surrealism.
Cercle et Carré included Jean Arp, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Antoine Pevsner, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Stella, Georges Vantongerloo, and others.
[18] Virtually ignored by the French press at the time, Cercle et Carré is now considered of great importance in the history of modern art.
[27] In February 1937, at the age of forty-one, Daura joined the Republican militia to fight against General Francisco Franco's forces.
[28] Because he refused to return to Spain after the war, his Spanish citizenship (and Martha's) was revoked by the Franco government, which emerged victorious.
[29] Rockbridge Baths, Virginia is a small village in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, near Lexington, named after the warm springs once used as a spa there.
[30] Louise's mother gave her property there, including the springs, and the Dauras used a modest building on the land as a vacation home beginning with their first visit to Virginia in 1934–35.
[31] They also lived at the baths after they came to Virginia in July 1939 until early 1942, when they moved as caretakers to "Tuckaway", an historic property in Rockbridge County near Lexington.
Although the main body of Daura's work was strongly rooted in representation and the celebration of nature, he returned to abstract themes throughout his life.
His papers, including letters to other Cercle et Carré artists such as Michel Seuphor are Joaquín Torres García, are in the Pierre Daura Center at the Georgia Museum of Art.
