Pierre Daura

Who was Pierre Daura?

Pedro Francisco Daura y Garcia was born on Minorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, a few days before his parents returned to their home in Barcelona and registered his birth there as February 21, 1896. In Paris, in 1914, his French identity papers were issued with Pierre as his given name, and that is how he is usually known; however, he is known as Pere where Catalan is spoken.

Daura's father, Juan Daura y Sendra, was a musician in the Barcelona Liceo Orchestra and a textile merchant. His godfather was the famed cellist Pablo Casals. His mother, Rosa de Lima Garcia y Martinez, died when he was seven. He and two younger siblings, Ricardo and Mercedes, were raised by their father, who never remarried.

Daura received his art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona, known as "La Llotja". His teachers included José Ruiz y Blasco and Joseph Calvo. Whilst at La Llotja he also worked for the stage deisgner Joaquim Jimenez y Sola. At age fourteen, with his young friends Emilio Bosch-Roger and Vidal Salichs, he set up a studio and sold his first painting at his inaugural exhibition to the Catalan artist and collector Pascual Monturiol, who said it reminded him of Paul Cézanne's work. In 1914, Calvo urged Daura to go to Paris to pursue his art career. He arrived there in the early summer that year and first worked in the studio of Émile Bernard, with whom he was friends for many years. Later, he studied engraving under André Lambert.