Intimate Maternity with Children, Large Spanish School of Paris Oil Painting
Artist: Pedro Creixams / Pere Créixams i Picó
Title: Composition
Technique: Oil on canvas
Canvas size: 100 × 81 cm / 39.4 × 31.9 in
Signature: Signed lower right
Inscription: Inscribed on the reverse: “Composition”, Creixams, 48 rue Durantin, Paris 18e
Frame: Unframed
Condition: Good overall condition, with visible craquelure, rich pictorial texture and signs of age consistent with an original mid-20th-century oil painting
Description
Magnificent large-format oil on canvas by Pedro Creixams, also known as Pere Créixams i Picó, a Catalan Spanish painter closely associated with the School of Paris and the artistic world of Montmartre.
The painting depicts an intimate maternity scene, with a young mother breastfeeding a child while another child appears in the foreground, wrapped in a vivid turquoise floral dress. The subject combines tenderness, domestic intimacy and painterly sensuality, all handled with the free, expressive brushwork that characterizes Creixams’ most appealing figurative works.
The composition is especially powerful thanks to its contrast between the soft flesh tones of the figures, the luminous whites of the garments, the turquoise and floral notes of the child’s dress, and the darker, atmospheric background built with greens, blues, violets and pinks. The result is a rich, enveloping interior scene with strong decorative presence and emotional depth.
The faces are particularly captivating: the mother’s lowered gaze creates a quiet, protective mood, while the child in the foreground looks outward with a direct and almost theatrical presence. The painting balances tenderness and modernity, intimacy and chromatic force, without falling into sentimental excess. A proper School of Paris domestic thundercloud, but with Mediterranean skin and flowers.
The inscription on the reverse, mentioning “48 rue Durantin, Paris 18e”, places the work directly within the Parisian context of Montmartre, an especially attractive detail for collectors interested in Spanish artists working in France, bohemian Paris, Montmartre painting and European figurative art of the mid-20th century.
A large, signed and highly decorative work, ideal for collectors of Spanish painting, Catalan artists, School of Paris art, maternity scenes, mother and child paintings, expressive figurative oils and European modern interiors.
Biography
Pedro Creixams, Pere Créixams i Picó in Catalan, was a Spanish painter born in Barcelona in 1893 and died in 1965. Coming from a modest background and largely self-taught, he developed an artistic career between Barcelona and Paris, where he became connected with the bohemian atmosphere of Montmartre and the wider School of Paris.
His painting is known for expressive figuration, lively brushwork and a strong interest in human subjects: women, maternity scenes, children, musicians, dancers, popular characters, portraits and intimate interiors. His work combines Mediterranean warmth, Parisian bohemian spirit and a modern approach to the human figure.
Creixams belonged to the generation of Spanish and Catalan artists who found in Paris a fertile artistic environment during the first half of the 20th century. His paintings are appreciated for their lyrical quality, chromatic richness and emotional immedacy, making his work especially attractive to collectors of Spanish modern art and School of Paris painting.
Artistic Inspiration
This painting connects with the great tradition of modern maternity and figurative European painting. Its intimate mother-and-child theme recalls the tenderness of Mary Cassatt, while the emotional construction of the figures may evoke Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods. The chromatic intensity and expressive brushwork also resonate with Kees van Dongen, Suzanne Valadon, Jules Pascin and the wider School of Paris atmosphere.
At the same time, the painting retains a distinctly Spanish and Mediterranean sensibility: warm flesh tones, emotional directness, theatrical intimacy and a decorative force that makes the scene both human and visually magnetic. It is a work that speaks to collectors searching for maternity painting, Spanish figurative art, Paris School artists, Montmartre painting and expressive mid-century European oil paintings.
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European art with a Mediterranean soul.