SEGUNDO MATILLA MARINA, (Madrid, 1862 - Teià,... Lot 2

SEGUNDO MATILLA MARINA, (Madrid, 1862 - Teià, Barcelona, 1937). "Fishermen", 1907. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Measurements: 70 x 51 cm; 103 x 87 cm (frame). Although he was born in Madrid, Matilla trained and developed his career in Barcelona. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, under the direction of Antonio Caba. He took part in numerous exhibitions, including the Barcelona International Exhibition in 1891, 1894, 1896 and 1898 (honourable mention in 1891), the Barcelona Art Exhibitions of 1918 and 1919, and the Paris Salon of 1897. That same year he received an honourable mention at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid. His solo exhibitions include those held at the Salón Vilches in Madrid (1915) and, in Barcelona, at the Sala Parés (1914) and the Pallarés Galleries (1942), the latter a posthumous tribute. Several of his works exhibited there were bought by the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, and many others were exported to America. His landscapes of the Empordà, Camprodón, Port de la Selva and Cadaqués brought him great public and critical acclaim. A painter endowed with astonishing skill, a marked personality full of sensitivity, a mastery of drawing and painting technique and an overflowing capacity for work, Segundo Matilla was an excellent painter who cultivated absolutely all genres, being a great landscape and marine painter, painting portraits of great quality, especially of people from the world of show business, and his vases and still lifes were also highly appreciated. His paintings of bullfighting themes, painted with great spontaneity and full of movement, demonstrate his great fondness for the art of Cúchares. He always painted in a totally intelligible way and without any kind of reflexive complications, ignoring absolutely all the artistic trends of his time. His work can be found in various museums, such as the aforementioned Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the Prado Museum, the Pablo Gargallo Museum in Saragossa and the National Art Museum of Catalonia, as well as in important international private collections.