Bestard acquires much influence from his fellow painters, but at the same time we can see in his paintings the photographic essence, especially from the frames he uses to represent his work.
Guillermo Bestard i Cànaves (1881, Pollença, Mallorca – 1969, London) was a Mallorcan painter whose mature artistic identity emerged from close contact with leading Spanish and international artists working in Pollença in the early 20th century. Although he first gained prominence as a photographer, painting became the central focus of his creative life from the 1930s onward.
Guillermo Bestard; The Tower Above the Bay
Born into the culturally active environment of his family’s guesthouse in Pollença—often visited by foreign travellers—Guillermo received a progressive education at the Institució d’Ensenyament under Guillem Cifre de Colonya and Clara Hammerl. His command of Catalan, Spanish, German, and English allowed him to move easily within the international art circles that gathered in Mallorca during this period.
Guillermo’s artistic formation was profoundly shaped by his personal relationships with painters who made Pollença their home and studio base. Through sustained exposure to these figures, he absorbed the principles of composition, colour harmony, and atmospheric interpretation that would define his own pictorial language.
Guillermo Bestard; Summer Morning, Harbour Cove
By the early 1930s, Guillermo increasingly devoted himself to painting, gradually shifting away from the photographic work that had sustained him during his early career. In August 1931, he held his first public exhibition of paintings at the Pollença Club. His canvases from this period reveal a heightened sensitivity to Mediterranean light, coastal landscape, and the quiet rhythms of Mallorcan daily life—qualities rooted in Spanish luminism and enriched by broader European modernist influence.
Guillermo Bestard; Afternoon at the Village Church
Guillermo’s marriage in 1931 to the biologist Margalida Comas Camps brought him to Barcelona, where he continued to paint while managing a small photographic and printing workshop. The Spanish Civil War forced a prolonged separation, with Margalida exiled to England and Guillermo returning to Pollença, where he continued to paint despite political suspicion due to his Republican sympathies.
Guillermo Bestard; Village in Devon
In 1946, he rejoined his wife in London. From this point forward, painting became his dominant artistic pursuit. Between London and Mallorca, he developed a mature body of work characterised by clarity of light, disciplined composition, and a sense of contemplative stillness. After the death of his son Josep in 1954, Guillermo gradually withdrew from photography altogether and, by 1959, had sold the family studio, dedicating his final years almost exclusively to painting.
Guillermo Bestard; Fishing Boats
Guillermo Bestard’s presence at Rookleys Canadian Art reflects his unexpected but significant connection to Canada through the painter John Kinnear (1920–2003). Kinnear, well known for his wide-ranging artistic interests, became an avid collector of Bestard’s work and considered him a formative influence. He believed Bestard’s paintings shared a tonal and compositional affinity with those of Winston Churchill, particularly in their calm Mediterranean light, solid structuring of forms, and reflective mood.
Guillermo Bestard; Medieval Tower
Kinnear championed Bestard among Canadian collectors, ensuring his paintings entered Canadian collections and linking Mallorca’s artistic tradition directly to Canada’s mid-century art world. Rookleys preserves and presents this cross-cultural chapter through works once owned and admired by Kinnear.
Guillermo Bestard; Farmhouse
Guillermo Bestard died in London on 29 March 1969. While his vast photographic archive later became essential for documenting pre-tourism Mallorca, his paintings endure as the most intimate expression of his artistic vision—rooted in Mediterranean landscape and shaped by a lifetime among modernist painters, and now carried forward in part through his meaningful influence on a Canadian artist.