Darío De Regoyos

DARÍO DE REGOYOS Y VALDÉS (Ribadesella, Asturias, 1857 - Barcelona, 1913).
"La Villa Pichard", 1911.
Mixed media (watercolor, charcoal) on paper.
Signed, dated and located.
Measurements: 27 x 18 cm; 50 x 41 cm (frame).

He was formed in Madrid, in the Academy of San Fernando (1878). Soon, induced by his teacher Carlos de Haes and his musician friends, Enrique F. Arbós and Isaac Albéniz, he settled in Brussels (1879), where he would be a disciple of Josep Quinaux. In the Belgian capital he came into contact with E. Verhaeren, G. Rodenbach and M. Maeterlinck, a group of young creators who were forging the main Belgian cultural movement of the end of the century, an interest in which he himself would play an eminent role. Thus, he was part of the groups L'Essor (1881-83) and Les XX (1883-93). However, he never took root in any place; even during his Belgian period he frequently returned to Spain. During the 1980s he lived in the Basque Country, where he revitalized the already important local modern art school. In 1888 he accompanied the writer Verhaeren on a trip through Spain (he had already done it before with other Belgian companions), which would be the germ of his famous series "España negra" (Black Spain), published in Barcelona in 1899. If during the 1880s he only participated in exhibitions in Belgium and Holland, in the 1890s he would also participate in Paris, taking part regularly in the Salon des Indépendants. From these years he would also show his work in Madrid, Munich and Barcelona, the latter city where his painting was honored in 1894 by the most important figures of modernism. However, his work, marked by an impressionism of which he himself was one of the main definers, was not well accepted in the most conventional environments. In Belgium, Regoyos was also linked to the society La Libre Esthétique from its origin (1894), an association that gathered in this country the heritage of artistic modernism. In 1897 he held his first solo exhibition at the prominent Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris. The second, the following year, would take place at Els Quatre Gats in Barcelona, where he was artistic director of the magazine "Luz". Since 1900 the range of his exhibitions expanded, being his work shown in Bilbao, Frankfurt, Berlin, The Hague, Venice, Bayonne, San Sebastian, London, Mexico City, Bordeaux and Buenos Aires, among other cities. At the beginning of the 20th century Regoyos intensified his travels, living between Granada and Bilbao. In 1911 he settled in Barcelona, where he died two years later. He is represented in the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña in Barcelona, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao and the Gerstenmaier Collection, among many other museums and institutions.