Ramón Casas was a Catalan painter who lived between Barcelona, ​​Madrid, and Paris and helped establish Catalan Modernism. A painter, caricaturist, and graphic artist, he contributed to modernizing Spanish art during a period of relative intellectual stagnation.

Born into a wealthy family, he was able to travel to Paris early on, where his talent was recognized. He also experienced the bohemian lifestyle of the Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre. At the end of the century, he began to develop a style that would eventually become known as Modernisme, and he started to feel that he had more in common with Barcelona than with Paris. Even so, his increasingly "Catalan" painting was widely acclaimed throughout Europe. Simultaneously, his work as a graphic designer, adopting French Art Nouveau, was also a great success.

In Barcelona, ​​he didn't abandon the nightlife scene and practically made his home at Els Quatre Gats, a replica of Le Chat Noir in Paris. There, gatherings and exhibitions were held for the intellectual and artistic elite of Spain at the time, including a very young Pablo Picasso. In 1915, a scandal erupted in the city when he met Julia Peraire, a lottery vendor twenty-two years his junior. First a model and later his lover, they eventually married despite social and familial pressures.

Toward the end of his life, he continued to travel the world, but his fame waned. Casas was more of a figure of the past, a 19th-century painter amidst the upheaval of the 20th century.