Daniel Vázquez Díaz

DANIEL VÁZQUEZ DÍAZ (Nerva, Huelva, 1882 - Madrid, 1969).
"Notes for the frescoes of La Rabida", Palos, 1929.
Pencil on paper.
Signed, dated and with annotations in the lower margin.
Measurements: 24.5 x 34 cm; 42 x 50.5 cm (frame).

In the summer of 1927 Vázquez Díaz visited the Monastery of La Rábida, Huelva, with a symbolic project in which he proposed to narrate the discovery of America. The result shows how, at the end of the 1920s, Vázquez Díaz was already an artist who had matured considerably and, in his career, this monumental mural work would mark his fullness as a painter. Today the frescoes are considered a masterpiece of 20th century Spanish art and reflect the whole process of formal renovation of Spanish painting before the Civil War. Among the most famous frescoes of the group are: "La partida de las Naves", "El Pórtico de las Edades", "El pensamiento del Navegante", "Las Conferencias", "Los Heroicos Hijos de Palos y de Moguer" and "Las Naves".

Daniel Vázquez Díaz began painting in his student years, after discovering the work of Zurbarán and El Greco. In 1903 he moved to Madrid to focus on painting and copy the masters of the Prado, and there he became friends with Juan Gris, Solana and Dario de Regoyos. Three years later he settled in Paris, where he worked with the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and met Picasso, Braque, Modigliani and Max Jacob, among others, and assimilated a certain avant-garde spirit. During these years he began to develop his personal style, which mixed the constructive brushstrokes of Cézanne with the geometric structure and planes of cubism. Upon his return to Spain in 1918, he began teaching, first in his studio and later at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, where he obtained the chair of mural painting in 1932. Through his classes, Vazquez Diaz will spread a cubism of architectural monumentality, and that serves as a bridge to young artists with the trends that were developing in the rest of Europe. In addition to being an excellent landscape painter, Vázquez Díaz stood out as an illustrator and portraitist of some of the most important figures of his time. Among his mural works, it is worth mentioning those made for the monastery of La Rábida in Huelva, between 1927 and 1930, which consecrated him as a painter. In 1968, a year before his death, he was appointed member of the Academy of San Fernando. He is currently represented in the Reina Sofía National Museum, the museum that bears his name in Nerva, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Telefónica Foundation and the Fine Arts Museums of Bilbao and Seville, among others.