Josep Segrelles


Josep Segrelles Albert was a painter and Valencian illustrator born in Albaida, in Spain, in 1885, and died in the same town in 1969. He was the uncle of cartoonists and painters Eustaquio and Vicente Segrelles.

Biography

He studied in the Saint Charles Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Valencia and at Escola de la Llotja in Barcelona, where he moved being young. His first job was in a photography studio, working with illumination.
In 1926, already consecrated as an artist in Spain, Segrelles receives his first English lessons, foreseeing a possible departure to England. That very year he made an exhibition in London, obtaining more loses than incomes, but on 8 September 1926 he received an offer from British magazines The Illustrated London News and The Sketch. Due his appearances in The Sketch, Segrelles would also receive offers from Scandinavian press. He would also publish in The Illustrated London Newss Christmas special in 1927, being a regular signature in the Christmas specials until 1934.
He would contact with American publishing industry in 1927, getting an offer for artistical representation in the States the following year. Segrelles would set in Upper West Side, New York City in October, 1928. His first job was for Redbook magazine, and he would work also for The Cosmopolitan since 1930, the very same year of his first pictorical exhibition. By those ages, Cosmopolitan was one of the most sold magazines in America, consecrating Segrelles alongside with other illustrators like James Montgomery Flagg. In 1930 Segrelles would met Joanne Cummings, Miss Cummings, who become his model.
In 1931, Segrelles exhibited at International Art Center Roerich Museum. US press coined the term Blue Segrelles referring to his dark pallette. The term was a comparison to Maxfield Parrish's Blue Parrish.