Pilar Montaner y Sureda was an impressionist painter from the early 20th century, a pupil of Joaquin Sorolla, among others. The mother of eleven children and the wife of Joan Sureda, the heir of the Palacio Rei Sanxo in Valldemossa, she lived amidst luxury and children, art and culture. Different intellectuals of the day passed through the Suredas’ palace, like Unamuno and Rubén Darío. In this context of cultural activity, Pilar Montaner was one of the few Mallorcan women of the age who were able to devote themselves to painting and her work was exhibited in the main galleries of Barcelona and Madrid. The themes of the countryside, including her olive trees, portraits and scenes from everyday local life, reveal a talent that could have been developed more intensely. A painter who was unfairly forgotten by the great History, her work was barely recognised within a very active artistic context.
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