JOAQUÍN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA (Valencia, 1863 - Cercedilla,... Lot 2

JOAQUÍN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA (Valencia, 1863 - Cercedilla, Madrid, 1923). "Self-portrait", 1884. Charcoal on paper. Signed, dedicated ("Estado actual/de tu amigo/Sorolla a/su amigo/Pedro Gil, 1894") and dated in the right margin. The paper has slight stains. Attached certificate issued by Blanca Pons Sorolla. Reproduced on the cover of the catalog of the Exhibition tribute to the painter Joaquín Sorolla on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death", Sala Parés, Barcelona, 1973. Measurements: 16 x 10 cm; 40 x 34 cm (frame). Sorolla painted about fifteen self-portraits during his life, most of which are preserved in the Sorolla Museum in Madrid. In this drawing, we see a middle-aged man, with a stern expression, looking straight ahead. Confident and somewhat active, he shows the high point of his career in which he finds himself. The stroke is energetic as is his brushstroke in the oils, testifying to a firm and resolute pulse. We can compare it with the paintings of the same period when he painted in his studio or on the beach, which was still his open-air studio. But the drawing, being dedicated to a friend, is imbued with a more spontaneous character. Already in his school days, Joaquín Sorolla showed his fondness for drawing and painting, attending drawing classes in the afternoons given by the sculptor Cayetano Capuz at the School of Artisans. Awarded upon finishing his preliminary studies at the Escuela Normal Superior, he entered the prestigious Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in Valencia in 1879. Also, during his visits to Madrid in 1881 and 1882, he copied paintings by Velázquez, Ribera and El Greco at the Prado Museum. Two years later he obtained a great success at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts with a history painting, which stimulated him to apply for a scholarship to study at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Having achieved his goal, in 1885 Sorolla left for Rome, staying in Paris for several months before arriving. In the French capital he was impressed by the paintings of the realists and the painters who worked outdoors. At the end of his years in Rome he returned to Valencia in 1889, settling in Madrid the following year. In 1892 Sorolla showed a new concern in his art, becoming interested in social problems by depicting the sad scene of "¡Otra Margarita!", awarded a first class medal at the National, and the following year at the International in Chicago. This sensitivity would remain in his work until the end of the decade, in his performances on the Valencian coast. Gradually, however, the Valencian master will abandon the themes of unhappy children that we see in "Triste herencia", which had been awarded a prize at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900 and at the National in Madrid a year later. Encouraged by the success of his resplendent images of the Mediterranean, and stimulated by his love of the light and life of its sunny beaches, he focused on these scenes in his works, more cheerful and pleasant, with which he would achieve international fame. In 1906 he held his first individual exhibition at the George Petit Gallery in Paris, where he also demonstrated his skills as a portraitist. In 1908 the American Archer Milton Huntington, impressed by the artist's exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in London, sought to acquire two of his works for his Hispanic Society. A year later he himself invited Sorolla to exhibit at his institution, resulting in an exhibition in 1909 that was a huge success. The relationship between Huntington and Sorolla gave rise to the most important commission of the painter's life: the creation of the immense canvases destined to illustrate, on the walls of the Hispanic Society, the regions of Spain. He is currently represented in the Prado Museum and the one that bears his name in Madrid, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Orsay Museum in Paris, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles...