Biografia
Graner was born in Barcelona in 1863, and studied at the Escola de la Llotja, where he learned from the masters Antoni Caba and Benet Mercadé. In his last academic year, he obtained a scholarship to go to Madrid, where he studied the masters of the Museo del Prado. He later travelled to Paris, where he became a member of the National Society of Fine Arts of France, and from where he produced and sent works to exhibit in the Catalan capital.
Having studied the Parisian artists and trends, he later returned to Barcelona, but continued to exhibit in different cities throughout Europe such as Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Düsseldorf, among others. Finally, in 1895, he was nominated head of the Barcelona Artistic Circle.
His style of painting lead towards a realistic style, and customary motifs such as the daily life of the humble, were the most recurring themes in his work. Although he was more inclined to represent interior scenes, in which he played with the effects of light, sometimes becoming theatrical or exaggerated, he also painted landscapes. In fact, in the early 1900s he was a teacher of Joaquim Mir, being responsible for his initiation into the genre of landscape.
Graner wanted his works to become a synthesis of all the arts; with this purpose in mind, he arranged musical shows and spectacles that combined poetry with music, scenography and cinema. However, the project did not prosper and he decided to go to America, where he devoted himself again to painting. He went to Havana, São Paulo, Montevideo, San Francisco, and finally settled in New York in 1920, until 1927, when he returned to Barcelona. The artist died in his home town a year later.