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Julio Llort Guindulain was born in Barcelona (Spain) on January 18, 1937, to parents Julio Llort Pastells and Antonia Guindulain Iglesias. [1] His father was a recognized painter, restorer and professor of Fine Arts and his mother was a laureate Hispanic-American writer and famous doctor in Dermatology and Clinical Aesthetics. Both moved to reside to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1960.

Biography
Julio Llort Guindulain's childhood and adolescence was spent around famous painters and writers, friends of his parents, and together they took trips to the countryside to paint. The young artist absorbed much knowledge from them about the artistic and cultural expressions of the time.

He entered the prestigious Academia Tórrega in the city of Barcelona, ​​where his teacher was the great landscape painter Don Ricardo Tórrega Viladoms. There, Julio Llort was thoroughly trained in drawing and human anatomy. With this foundation, he entered the Academy of San Jorge, where he studied Fine Arts. Already in his professorship, he studied Applied Arts at the Massana School, also located in Barcelona, where he studied torch enameling on metal and classical Italian stained glass and skylight making.

He managed to study in the restoration studio under Femando Serra Sala, who was director of the Department of Restoration and Conservation of the Artistic and Architectural Heritage for the City of Barcelona. Immersed in this new source of knowledge, he acquired greater experience in painting techniques and diverse materials, such as gold leaf, fresco painting, sgraffito, stucco, and engraving on paper and wood. He gained in-depth knowledge about classical painting techniques, press printing and treatment, and classical formulas for mixing paint color; all very important training for a fine art restorer.

He collaborated with his teacher on the restoration of many pieces. Their rescue of the religious frescoes of the Romanesque Chapels of the Spanish Pyrenees, and their relocation to the rooms of the Museum of Romanesque Art of Moutjvic (Barcelona) – which required intense work of Julio Llort, both in the field and the studio – impacted the budding restorer greatly. In spite of his heavy workload, Julio Llort continued painting and participated in several exhibitions in Valencia, Madrid and Barcelona, the last being ​​where he won First Prize in 1962 in the Art-Nou Contest and a prize in 1964 at Salón de Junio.

Through his annual visits to the Caribbean to see his parents, he fell in love with the tropics, and so he moved there to Puerto Rico, where they lived. In Puerto Rico he got many offers to work in the University of Rio Piedras, and after gaining his residence he founded the torch enamels lab in the the Fine Arts and Crafts Studio of the university, with Professor Ismael Dalales as the head professor of the Studio. The enamels laboratory was well received by the students. At the same time, Julio Llort collaborated with his father in the restoration studio for the Museum of Puerto Rico, amongst other public and private institutions. During this time the governor of Puerto Rico, Don Luis Ferrer, created the Museum of Ponce in the city of Ponce and consequently his father’s studio was flooded with greatly valued works in need of restoration for the museum. Indeed, Governor Luis Ferrer gave a great boost to the arts in Puerto Rico.

Art Restoration Career
In 1968, the then-President of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Joaquín Balaguer, along with the painter Tony Prats Ventos, Don Horacio Vicioso Soto, Ramón Font Bernat and others, made efforts to get a fine art restorer to rescue the collection of paintings of the Palace of Fine Arts, at that time in a deplorable state of conservation. Julio Llort was contacted to come to Santo Domingo to examine the collection. The President appointed him restorer of the Palace of Fine Arts and he began the rescue work of the Pinacoteca.

Restoring the Palacio's collection was an arduous task, but he carried it out with great success. What was supposed to be a stay of a few months became a permanent residence in the Dominican Republic – given the fact that there were no other restorers in the country, at least not with his expertise. Julio Llort restored works for museums, then under construction, such as the Museo de las Casas Reales, Casa del Tostado, Patrimonio Cultural, Cabildo de la Catedral Primada, Basílica de Higüey, Convento de los Domínicos, Museo del Hombre, and Casa de Duarte. He rendered a commendable deed for the artistic heritage of the Republic. Interest in restoring the works belonging to public institutions and private collections grew, along with the flourishing of the painting of the artists of the time. Julio Llort always had advice on materials or techniques for the new or advanced student, and his concepts and opinions were constructive.

When the Galería de Arte Moderno (GAM) was built in the Plaza de la Cultura, Julio Llort was appointed by Dr. Balaguer as its Restorer and Museographer. He collaborated with the architect Don José Miniño on spacing and lighting. Together the head director of the Gallery, Dr. Antonio Fernández Spencer, and a group of collaborators would go on to form the rules and statutes, as well as contacts with the most important galleries and museums of the world, in order to have the possibility to welcome traveling international exhibitions, lecturers, and national and foreign artists’s shows into the GAM's rooms. Julio Llort was in this line of work at the GAM until 1980, when he split off to dedicate himself completely to his work of painting and restoration. It is then when he fully resumed his creative artistic work and his private restoration work.

Themes
The artist continued oil painting with a Dominican theme: landscapes, royal poinciana trees, creole folk custombrism, typical countryside characters – preferably outdoors and in the sun. While his themes vary, they always reveal 'Dominican-ness’ as the coherent theme of his artistic style. As throughout his artistic career, he painted in his own style, Impressionistic realism. In his works he mixed realism and hyperrealism with blurred and impressionistic areas to emphasize the main theme. He also dedicated himself to oil portrait painting, both for private and institutional commissions, portraits in: the gallery of ex-governors of the Central Bank, the gallery of CEDOPEX, the directors of the Bank of the Caribbean and another extensive collection of Banco Popular, as well as the extensive collection of ex-presidents of the Santo Domingo Country Club and Gallery of Former Directors of INAPA. He also did the portraits of the Presidents of the Dominican Republic in each period: Dr. Balaguer, Dr. Jorge Blanco, lng. Hipólito Mejía and Dr. Leonel Fernández in their official version, for the National Palace and Presidential Hall of the Aeropuerto de las Américas. His portraits ranged from bust paintings to painting of the hands or the entire body; portraits of couples and family groups in an environmental scene. He created diverse individual exhibitions, as much in the Dominican Republic as in Germany, Belgium and Puerto Rico, as well having participated in several collective expositions.

Julio Llort's paintings, in the most recent years, present his own vision of unifying traditional themes with a way of seeing the most modern trends; a somewhat ecological way of recreating himself in the wild vegetation. His still lifes are diffuse escapes; there is always an escape out into the open air. Lover of nature, almost all his paintings are subjects in full sun, giving a sensational atmosphere to his works. In a rebellious manner, he unconsciously refuses to be "fashionable", as he says, since although he values ​​and admires the recent, modern forms of expression in painting, abstractions are not part of his personality due to his training. A great admirer of the evolution of the Dominican art world, he says that the artists of this land carry the art in the veins, the color and the sun of this country influences the creative mind of the Dominican artists.

At the moment he continues his work painting in varied subjects like landscapes, still lifes and portraits, without forgetting the restorations, that as he says, are a romantic touch of his race. Happily married with his wife Ms. Georgina de Llort and with a beautiful family of children and grandchildren, Julio Llort, is part of the artistic life of this country of his choice: The Dominican Republic.

Exhibitions of Julio Llort

 * Individual - Spain - Valencia Salón Municipal 1961
 * Individual - Spain - Madrid Galería Serrallo 1962
 * Individual - Spain - Barcelona Gallery Cira 1964
 * Single - Spain - Benidorm Hotel Mar 1966
 * Individual - Spain - Barcelona Sala Pujadas 1966
 * Individual - Puerto Rico -University Rio Piedras 1967
 * Individual - Puerto Rico - Universidad Rio Piedras 1968
 * Single - Santo Domingo - House Studio 1980
 * Individual - Santo Domingo - Galería Arte Moderno 1982
 * Individual -Puerto Plata - RD - Hotel Playa Dorada H In 1984
 * Biennial - Germany - Museum of Bochum (10 Artworks) 1985
 * Individual - Belgium - Mechelen Gallery Den Bolsach 1985
 * Individual - Santo Domingo - National Palace Salón Verde 1990
 * Individual - Santo Domingo - Museum of the Royal Houses 2003
 * Individual - Santo Domingo - Lights of Autumn

Julio Llort Guindulain