Segundo Matilla

SEGUNDO MATILLA MARINA, (Madrid, 1862 - Teià, Barcelona, 1937).
"Fishermen", ca. 1905.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower margin.
Measurements: 70 x 40.5 cm; 88 x 58 cm (frame).

This scene evokes a strong relationship between men and the sea, highlighting the traditional and artisanal character of the fishing work, possibly a reference to a way of life that Matilla observed closely on the Catalan coast. The navy is resolved in his commendable impressionist style, with agile brushstrokes and a special attention to light. Two sailboats are drawn on the horizon.

Despite being 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 participated in numerous exhibitions, such as the International Exhibition of Barcelona in 1891, 1894, 1896 and 1898 (honorable mention in 1891), the Art Exhibitions of the same city in 1918 and 1919, and in the Paris Salon of 1897. That same year he obtained an honorable mention at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid. Among his individual exhibitions were 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. He achieved great public and critical success thanks to his landscapes of the Empordà, Camprodón, Port de la Selva and Cadaqués. A painter endowed with astonishing skill, a marked personality full of sensitivity, with 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 painter and sailor, painting portraits of great quality, especially of people from the world of show business, and his flower paintings 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 reflexive complications of any kind, ignoring absolutely all the artistic currents 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 Zaragoza and the National Art Museum of Catalonia, as well as in important international private collections.