Xavier Valls started out in the world of art studying with the sculptor Charles Collet, who also introduced him to artists on the Barcelona cultural scene, including Manolo Hugué, Pau Roig and Josep Llorens I Artigas. In 1946 Valls founded the Cercle Maillol, a group of Catalan artists at the French Institute of Barcelona, along with Josep Maria de Sucre, Charles Collet and Núria Picas, among others. He travelled to Geneva in 1948 and was awarded the French Institute Scholarship the following year. That allowed him to move to Paris, which he made his permanent home. He subsequently only travelled to Barcelona and Madrid occasionally to attend his exhibitions or on holiday. In the French capital he got to know Luis Fernández, Balthus and Fernand Léger, with whom he worked on stained glass windows.
His first show was part of a group exhibition with Ninon and Charles Collet at the SYRA Gallery (Barcelona, 1951). His work was regularly shown at the Henriette Gomès Gallery in Paris between 1961 and 1985. Subsequently, also in Paris, he worked with the Claude Bernard Gallery, and in 1981 his first major retrospective was held at Musée Ingres (Montauban, France, 1981). In tandem, his work was exhibited in Spain at the Theo Gallery (Madrid, 1974) and in two retrospectives, one organised by the Directorate-General of Fine Arts (Madrid, 1982) and the other by the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (1985). In 2003 a volume of his memoirs entitled La meva capsa de Pandora was published. In 2013, seven years after his death, Espai Volart 2 at the Vila Casas Foundation (Barcelona) held an exhibition of his work. Valls received the Prix Drouant Critics Award in 1980, the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 1999 and, a year later, the National Award for Plastic Arts from the Autonomous Government of Catalonia. He was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2000.
Xavier Valls started out in the world of art studying with the sculptor Charles Collet, who also introduced him to artists on the Barcelona cultural scene, including Manolo Hugué, Pau Roig and Josep Llorens I Artigas. In 1946 Valls founded the Cercle Maillol, a group of Catalan artists at the French Institute of Barcelona, along with Josep Maria de Sucre, Charles Collet and Núria Picas, among others. He travelled to Geneva in 1948 and was awarded the French Institute Scholarship the following year. That allowed him to move to Paris, which he made his permanent home. He subsequently only travelled to Barcelona and Madrid occasionally to attend his exhibitions or on holiday. In the French capital he got to know Luis Fernández, Balthus and Fernand Léger, with whom he worked on stained glass windows.
His first show was part of a group exhibition with Ninon and Charles Collet at the SYRA Gallery (Barcelona, 1951). His work was regularly shown at the Henriette Gomès Gallery in Paris between 1961 and 1985. Subsequently, also in Paris, he worked with the Claude Bernard Gallery, and in 1981 his first major retrospective was held at Musée Ingres (Montauban, France, 1981). In tandem, his work was exhibited in Spain at the Theo Gallery (Madrid, 1974) and in two retrospectives, one organised by the Directorate-General of Fine Arts (Madrid, 1982) and the other by the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (1985). In 2003 a volume of his memoirs entitled La meva capsa de Pandora was published. In 2013, seven years after his death, Espai Volart 2 at the Vila Casas Foundation (Barcelona) held an exhibition of his work. Valls received the Prix Drouant Critics Award in 1980, the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 1999 and, a year later, the National Award for Plastic Arts from the Autonomous Government of Catalonia. He was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2000.