Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench

IGNACIO PINAZO CAMARLENCH (Valencia, 1849 - Godella, Valencia, 1916).
"Girl.
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 28 x 22 cm; 39 x 33 cm (frame).
Born in the bosom of a humble family, Pinazo was forced from very young to contribute with different occupations to the support of his home. He had only completed the eighth grade at school when his mother died of cholera, so he soon had to be employed in various trades, including silversmith, tile decorator, baker, gilder and painter of fans. After the death of his father he went to live with his grandfather, and in 1864 he entered the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a disciple of José Fernández Olmos. During this period he earned his living as a milliner and began his artistic training at the age of twenty-one, achieving his first success three years later in Barcelona. In 1871 he entered the National Exhibition of Fine Arts for the first time. He was in Rome twice, the first time thanks to the sale of a painting, in 1873, and the second time with a scholarship, between 1876 and 1881. There he began his great productions of history, far from the conventions of the genre. In his first period he developed an academicist style, but from 1874 he began a more intimate and impressionist pictorial line. When he returned to Valencia he abandoned historical themes, and instead began to paint family subjects, nudes and scenes of everyday life, and is now considered a precursor, both in subject matter and style, of Joaquín Sorolla and Francisco Domingo. In 1884 Pinazo left Valencia temporarily due to a cholera epidemic, settling in the house that the banker José Jaumandreu owned in Bétera. From his return that same year until 1886, he taught at the School of Fine Arts in Valencia. During these years he received numerous commissions from the Valencian aristocracy, counting among his clients prominent figures such as the Marquise of Benicarló.Pinazo showed his works at the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts in Madrid, achieving in 1881 and 1885 a silver medal and, in 1897 and 1899, the gold medal. In 1896 he was named academician of San Carlos, and in 1906 he will also be named academician of San Fernando, in Madrid. In 1900 he was involved in the decoration of the staircase of the palace of Don José Ayora, together with Antonio Fillol, Peris Brell, Ricardo Verde and Luis Beüt. For these years he received a royal medal and, in 1912, the city of Valencia dedicated a street to him. At his death, in 1916, the commemorative acts of his life and work will follow. Pinazo is currently represented in the Prado Museum, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Museum and Circle of Fine Arts in Valencia, his House-Museum in Godella and the Valencian Provincial Council, as well as in several important private collections.