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Ignacio
Zuloaga

Biography and information

Ignacio Zuloaga (Spanish: Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta, July 26, 1970, Eibar - October 31, 1945, Madrid) - a Spanish artist who defended the identity and traditional cultural values of his country during the economic and political crisis in Spain. It was incredibly popular in Europe and America.

Features of the artist Ignacio Zuloagi: the young artist of Zuloaga admired the paintings of his predecessorEl Greco at a time when famous museums and art historians refused to recognize its significance. The influence of heavy lead skies and gloomy elongated figures of El Greco is the most powerful influence that the Zuloaga experienced. He opened El Greco to his young colleagues in France. At the same time, a certain theatricality, decorativeness, which came to painting with the development of the Art Nouveau style, is also characteristic of the paintings of Suloaga. His favorite motifs are bullfighting, flamenco, old Spanish architecture and the enchanting richness of national costumes.

Famous paintings by Ignacio Zuloagi: "Dwarf Gregorio », "Doña Maria del Rosario de Silva and Gurtubay, 17th Duchess of Alba".

Ignacio Zuloaga was fantastically popular in Europe and America.John Singer Sargent wrote an enthusiastic introduction to the catalog of works released before the artist's American exhibition tour.Gauguin andToulouse lautrec admired his work and were his close friends,Auguste Rodin traveled with him in Spain. Russian collectors hunted for his works - and during the years of this general obsession with Suloaga, collector Mikhail Ryabushinsky bought one of his best works - “Dwarf Gregorio”. Now this picture is in the collection of the Hermitage. Museums of Paris and Barcelona bought his paintings directly from the exhibitions, his works were included in national expositions at the Venice Biennale and world exhibitions. Ignacio Zuloaga, carrying out his own artistic mission and not trying to please someone, was at the right time and in the right place - on the wave of a passion for all the “Spanish” in Europe, in particular in France.

A descendant of a whole family of royal gunsmiths, Ignacio gladly participated in the jewelry and hammered works of his father. But already by the age of 18, he knew for sure that he would become an artist, and for this he had to go to study in Paris - and, of course, to no academy. In the French capital, he settled in Montmartre and lived from hand to mouth, interrupting modest money transfers from his mother and the help of fellow artists.

The main educational institutions of Zuloaga were the bars and art workshops of Montmartre in Paris and the Prado Museum in Madrid. He divided the time between France and Spain equally, during the time of fame that fell upon him, he lived in America for several years. But at the same time, he did not fit, strictly speaking, into any of the artistic directions of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. If there were guidelines in his creative development, then certainly not the academic rules and instructions, but rather the cultural myths of Spain: bullfighting, flamenco. And the artist El Greco, whom, say art critics, rediscovered precisely the Zuloaga. While the Prado Museum in the 1880s refused to include El Greco’s paintings in the collection, calling them “ridiculous caricatures,” Zuloaga bought two canvases:"Vision of St. John" and "St. Francis Accepts Stigmata". There is a legend that “Vision” was seen by Pablo Picasso in the Paris studio of Suloagi - and this picture made a powerful impression on him and influenced the composition and style "Avignon girls".

Obsessed with the idea of national consciousness, the “Spanishization" of Spain, the return of greatness to the country, the Zuloaga seeks inspiration in national costumes and types, the old architecture of his country and gloomy dramatic skies.

By the age of 50, the Zuloaga became a recognized and successful artist: he was able to buy an old medieval castle to permanently settle in the beloved region of Spain - in Castile, became president of the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, one of his exhibitions was opened by King Alfonso XIII himself.