Rue du marché, Joaquim Sunyer de Miró (Sitges 1874 - 1956), c. 1902. Oil on cardboard, 41 x 33 cm. Museum of the Empordà. Figueres.
Sunyer arrived in Paris in 1896, where he met Canals, Nonell and Picasso. The generation before Rusiñol, Casas and Utrillo, they made some of the best modern Catalan works. In Montmartre he worked on urban landscapes, dominated by busy figures. The Laundress (La Blanchisseuse) encapsulates his work, and the painting shows a humble worker bent over with the weight of the white clothes she carries. The movement disappeared around 1904, when the artist started working with Fernande Olivier, a model who inspired him to paint nudes.
