Joaquín Sorolla

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Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida: self-portrait

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (* 27. February 1863 in Valencia , † 10. August 1923 in Cercedilla ) was a Spanish painter and graphic artist of Impressionism .

life and work

Joaquín Sorolla (1895)

Sorolla y Bástida came from a humble background. Because his parents had died of cholera, he became an orphan at the age of two . He grew up with his aunt Isabel, a sister of his mother. Her husband worked as a locksmith, a profession that the young Sorolla was initially supposed to learn. The director of the craft school recognized Sorolla's talent for drawing and convinced the relatives to allow an artistic training at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia in addition to the locksmith training . At the age of 15 he attended the drawing lessons of the sculptor Cayetano Capuz and was under the influence of Francisco Domingo y Marqués , Ignacio Pinazo Camarlech and Emilio Sala Francés . During a trip to Madrid in 1881 in the Prado , he got to know the works of Velázquez and Ribera , whose paintings he copied.

After the first successful exhibitions in Valencia, Sorolla received a grant from the provincial council in 1885. This enabled him to study for a longer period in Rome, where he became a student of Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz . In the same year Sorolla traveled to Paris for the first time and saw Impressionist paintings that had a lasting influence on his style of painting. In 1888 in Valencia he married Clotilde García, the sister of a former classmate at the Academy of San Carlos, Juan Antonio García. The first year of marriage Sorolla lived with his wife in Assisi, Italy . The children María Clotilde (* 1890), Joaquín (* 1892) and Elena (* 1895) emerged from the marriage. In 1896 he received a large gold medal at the International Art Exhibition in Berlin .

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida: Walk on the Beach (1909)

After his final return to his Spanish homeland, Sorolla settled in Madrid. First he painted historical subjects and turned to realism . With the painting Otra Margarita he achieved his first great success in 1892. In the following years he took part in numerous international exhibitions and received important prizes. He exhibited his painting Return of the Fishermen successfully in the Paris Salon , whereupon the French state bought it. He received a Medal of Honor at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 . In 1906 he was appointed officer of the Legion of Honor. After exhibitions in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne and London, he traveled to New York in 1909 at the invitation of Archer Milton Huntington . An exhibition of his work in the Hispanic Society of America founded by Huntington was hailed as a great success. Then US President William Howard Taft had Sorolla portray himself . Exhibitions at the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago followed in 1911 .

From Huntington Sorolla also received the commission for one of his main works, the arrangement of the library of the Hispanic Society of America . Up to 1919 he had created 14 large-format paintings depicting various Spanish regions. For this job, Sorolla received the high compensation of 150,000 US dollars at the time. His fortune enabled Sorolla to live in a holiday home in Cercedilla in the Sierra de Guadarrama and a beach house in Valencia in addition to his house in Madrid . Influenced by the work of the French Impressionists, he worked in the open air and his dark palette lightened. Portraits, genre scenes , landscapes and book illustrations were created. His favorite subjects included depictions of Spanish folk life and beach paintings in his hometown of Valencia, such as the painting Strandspaziergang from 1909 . In 1911 he was accepted as a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts .

Sorolla suffered from hemiparesis for the last three years of his life , so that he could not attend his appointment as professor of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid and the opening of the HD library in New York. After the death of his wife, Sorolla's house in Madrid was donated to the Spanish state with a large number of his paintings. The son Joaquín Sorolla García acted as the first director of the Museo Sorolla founded here . Valencia's high-speed train station, built in 2010, bears his father's name.

gallery

literature

Web links

Commons : Joaquín Sorolla  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Sorolla, Joaquín
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sorolla y Bastida, Joaquín; Sorolla i Bastida, Joaquim (Catalan)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Valencia , Spain
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1923
Place of death Cercedilla , Spain