Jose Santiago
Garnelo Alda

Spain • born in XX century

Biography and information

Enguera, Valencia, 1866-Montilla, Cordoba, 1944). Spanish painter, illustrator, restorer and decorator. He was professor and academician of the Schools of Fine Arts of San Luis of Zaragoza and San Fernando of Madrid, as well as professor of the one of Barcelona. Commander of the order of Alfonso XII and officer of the order of Leopoldo II, director of the magazine Por el Arte, secretary of the Association of Painters and Sculptors and deputy director of the Prado Museum. He studied art at the School of Fine Arts of Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville, where he was a disciple of Eduardo Cano de la Peña and Manuel Ussel. Later he continued his training at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, under Dióscoro Puebla, Carlos Luis de Ribera and Casto Plasencia. In 1888 he moved as a boarder to the Spanish Academy in Rome, where he befriended Vicente Palmaroli, Emilio Sala, Francisco Pradilla and José Villegas, among others. He traveled to Paris, Austria and Bavaria. As an illustrator, he collaborated in the book by his father, the physician José Ramón Garnelo y Gonzálvez, entitled El hombre ante la estética o tratado de antropología artística, and as a writer, his publication Escala gráfica y el compás de inclinación, which he presented at the International Congress of Rome in 1911. He participated in numerous exhibitions, both national and foreign, and won second medals in the National Exhibitions of 1887 and 1890, respectively, first in 1892 and decoration in the 1904 edition. He was also awarded a medal at the Chicago Universal Exposition of 1893 and sent his works to the Paris Salon of 1912. As a decorator, the ornamentations he carried out in Madrid buildings, the palace of the Infanta Isabel, the dome of the office of the president of the Supreme Court, among others, and the restoration of the frescoes of the Casón del Buen Retiro and the choir of the church of San Francisco el Grande, stand out.