Josep Manresa

Josep Manresa Clar (Llucmajor, 1938 – 2002) is one of the best-loved painters of our town. He began his painting studies in Llucmajor, continued them in Palma with the master Ramon Nadal and completed them in Barcelona with Fernando Álvarez, earning the highest qualification as an artistic draughtsman.

From his first solo exhibition in Palma in 1966, his post-impressionist painting travelled across Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca and through Palma's leading galleries — Jaume III, Arte Xaloc, Art Fama, Caixa de Pensions and the Cercle de Belles Arts — before expanding across mainland Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Valladolid, Segovia, Zaragoza and Vigo. In all, he held more than fifty-five solo exhibitions.

In 1980 he was chosen, together with other Mallorcan painters, to represent Spain at the Artexpo international fair in New York, and that same year he took part in the London International Exhibition. His work later travelled to Brussels, Germany, the Netherlands and Lyon, and came to be shown at the Galerie Marcel Bernheim on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. He also painted in Cuba and Mexico.

Llucmajor Town Council dedicated a tribute exhibition to him at Can Bernadí during the Fires of 2002, the year of his death. His pictorial legacy lives on today in his son, the painter Pep Manresa.