Hood Quarterly, summer 2003
Pierre Daura (1896–1976) was born in Minorca, Spain, and spent most of his youth in Barcelona, where he studied art with Pablo Picasso’s father. He moved to Paris in 1914, painting and drawing in the European center of Bohemian artist life for the next fifteen years.
Daura emerged as a leader among a small coterie of abstract artists—including Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Piet Mondrian, and Kurt Schwitters— who later exhibited under the group name Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square). Boats by the Ebro is a stark, simplified etching that dates from just before this period of intense geometric experimentation. It is one of twelve works on paper—including a brilliant series of prints done in protest of the Spanish Civil War—that were given to the Hood by the artist’s daughter, Martha Daura, late last year.