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1. STORY OF HIS ARTISTIC LIFE.

Remigio Soler Tomás was born in Agres, Alacant, on October 14th, 1897, in a family of labourers. When he was still a child his awakening to art took place, demonstrating artistic skills and in 1915, encouraged by his teacher, he moved with his family to València, to train academically in the plastic and artistic disciplines.

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Remigio in the Nursery Park of València_negatiu in glass plate (1920s)

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Virgen del Carmen

Author – Remigio Soler
Place – Altar of the Almas in the Church of Carmelitas of calle Ayala, Madrid (work disappeared)
Technique – Decoration of the retablo and mural painting
Measures – Unknown
Year – 1942-45

Academic training and workshop.


Already in València he studies at Arts and Crafts School, where he got an extraordinary prize and in the Saint Charles Real Academy of Fine Arts, where we won a first class distinction. Among his teachers were Antonio Fillol Granell and Salvador Abril Blasco in the Arts and Crafts School; and Isidoro Garnelo Fillol, Julio Cebrián Mezquita, José Renau Montoro, Josep Renau´s father and José Benlliure Gil, in the Saint Charles Real Academy of Fine Arts.

He started like the italian Renaissance artists: training and artistics works in the studio. There he knew, learnt ant practiced, with authority in all genres and techniques. This were the bases of all his later work development. He soon adquired professional prestige, always advised by Domingo Meli, his teacher, and by the shop assistant where he bought the materials, named Lamo. In this period he worked in restoration, polychromy and ornamentation; also to wall decoration in churches and ballrooms and flats from the new middle class and the latest aristocracy.

From that moment, and for the rest of his life, he helped to sostein economically his whole family as a real pater familias.

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Las Provincias - Actualidad Gráfica (1-5-1931)

The biginning of his own style.

At the very biginning he worked close to his teachers in the same studio, but soon he started to work separately and got and independance from them working by his own and adquiring his personal style.

From his first stage, during the 20´s and 30´s, we can find his religious works in the comunion chapel in Agullent (1927); in the hermitage of farm in Albors d’Agres (1927); nowadays this is in the comunio chapel in the church of Agres; in the Carmelites in 35 Ayala street in Madrid (1930 and 40´s), this last is missing; in València, in the churches of the Temple (1923) with Ricardo White, of Saint Joseph of the Mountain (1931) and in the parishes in Almoines (1931), Museros (1931), Albuixec (ca. 1932), Serra (1933) and Font d’en Carròs (1933). Even in the churches in Beniarjó (work missing), Rafelcofer, Vilallonga and Alqueria de la Comtessa (here there are some works from the postwar period).

On the 6th of Juny 1926 we was married to Amalia and there had four children. She was his muse, his inspiration and his very best critical. Unfortunately, Amalia died to soon and Remigio would never be fully, emotionally or emotionally re-established, neither in the human aspect nor in the artistic

Before the Civil War, Remigio Soler joined some scenographer painters and worked in the Russafa theatre in València, where he painted courtains, border clothes, scenaries aand even posters. In this period he worked also as a “falles” painter.
The landscapes and people from Agres Sierra Mariola, Agullent and the Albaida Valley, Saint Spirit, València City and its vegetable gardens, or even the Salamanca neigbourghood in Madrid, were motives in his canvas those first years.

097 Sant Elies mural_Carmelites Caudete-Albacete.

San Elias

Author – Remigio Soler
Place – Altar of San Elías in the Church of San José de Carmelitas de Caudete (Albacete)
Technique – Acrylic on wall
Measures – 225 x 350 cm.
Year – 1950

During the Civil War and Postwar.


The Civil War stopped his artistic development After the desintegration of the various artistic cercles from what he was a member, he remained at home with his family and tried to survive between Agres and València and he only did few works.

In 1939, after the war, the Church started a hugh campaign of restaurations. Promoted by the State, Committees for the Restauration were created. Parishes, religious orders and private Maecenas helped to restore the works.

Remigio Soler was a part of the Committee of the Agres church as a vocal and painter. On the 26th July in 1939 the committee prepared and informed about its conditions, after that they communicated its conclusions to the Arte Sacro commission in the València Archbishop.

In this context, the artist entered in the history as a «churches painter».



Maturity and light period.

During his stays in the villages where he painted its churches, he often executed too easel works. He shared and impregnate himself with the daily life, with the costums from people and landscapes in those places. He painted in a free and altruistic way, portraits, caricatures and pencil cartoons from the villagers, produced first drafts and landscape paintings, watercolours and works about the cultural manifestations or the peculiar costums in the villages. These particularities showed, once again, his great artistic and creative worries.

But the big restaurations and the typical religious decorations in the postwar period disappeared little by little in the half of the 50´s, in the 60´s and the beginning of the 70´s. Is in that moment when he displayed his big artistic landscape profusion in canvas and easel boards.

Between the oils he created in that period, we wish to emphasize his mariner landscapes from Dénia, Xàbia, Benidorm and Vila Joiosa. Landscapes from the Stone Monastery, the mountainous area in Conca, the Serrans, Castelló de la Plana, Agres, Agullent, València city and its surroundings… … Some of them were a part of different collections all around the Spanigh State, the centre of Europe or the EEUU.

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Salvador Eucarístic

Author – Remigio Soler
Place – Main altar of the parish church of Sant Agustí, Alfara de la Baronia (Castellón)
Technique – Oil on wood
Measures – 65 x 110 cm.
Year – 1959

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Sant Joan del Mercat després de la tempesta, València

Author – Remigio Soler
Place: Private collection, València
Technique: Oil on wood
Measures: 50 x 60 cm.
Year: 1962

End of life and art.

The last period of his life, when his strenght was decreasing, his creative talents were extinguishing too, little by little, his creative intensity that kept him alive his whole life. He told:

«The art is intimately tied to my life. Nowadays, in my life, I have no great motives to feel alive, so which illusions can I have for art or whatever artistic activities?

His artistic and human light was estinguised on the 14th August in 1983 and he is buried in Agullent.

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La sega del pasturatge

Author – Remigio Soler
Place: Private collection, València
Technique: Oil on wood
Measures: 100 x 50 cm.
Year: 1968

1.6. Addresses where he lives throughout his life.

He lived in a lot of places: in València city during 62 years, in different periods of his life, in Bailèn, Comèdies, Llanterna, Portal de Valldigna and Reverend Josep Noguera streets; in Agres, about 20 years, in two periods; in Serra; in Sant Antoni street in Agullent, during the three years he was in charge of the church restauration works and also in other periods all through his live.

Casa natalícia OK OK ok

Here was the birthplace of Remigio Soler... attending to his birth certificate where he writes... in Trinquet Street No. 11 in Agres, Alicante. Currently Jaume Miquel Calatayud street.

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Calle Comedias 15, where Remigio Soler lived until 1926.

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Calle Portal de Vallgina 17, 2nd floor, Remigio Soler's studio between 1925 and 1930 and until 1970 as well as studio, housing.

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