Gustavo de Maeztu

GUSTAVO DE MAEZTU Y WHITNEY (Vitoria, 1887-Estella, 1947).
Untitled.
Oil on canvas adhered to board.
It presents multiple Repainting and faults in the pictorial surface.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 65 x 54 cm.
Maeztu begins in the plastic arts in the workshop of Antonio Lecuona, and from 1901 he studies with Manuel Losada. In 1904 he travels for the first time to Paris, where he learns first-hand about the avant-garde and, at the same time, he learns to appreciate classical Spanish painting with greater knowledge. On his return to Bilbao, four years later, he founded, together with other artists and intellectuals, the satirical magazine "El Coitao", where he developed his literary vocation under the pseudonym of Don Tejón Vélez de Duero. During 1916 he made a long journey on foot through Spain, taking notes of his various landscapes which, on his return, he exhibited in the Layetanas Galleries in Barcelona and in La Tribuna in Madrid. Throughout his life he alternated his travels in Spain with stays in Paris and London, and held repeated exhibitions in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza and other cities. He participated in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts of 1912, 1915, 1917, 1924, 1926 and 1936, as well as in the San Fernando Academy in 1928 and in those of Basque Artists in Bilbao in 1921 and 1923, and also exhibited his work abroad, in various Parisian and London galleries. Between 1919 and 1921 he held several exhibitions at the Grafton Galleries, the Malpin Art Gallery and the Walker Galleries in London, and in 1922 at the Devanber Gallery in Paris. In 1917, his triptych "La Tierra Ibérica y Ofrenda de Levante a la Tierra Española" won him a third medal at the National Exhibition. A painter of inclinations in accordance with his time, he approached the Basque, Castilian and Andalusian folkloric costumbrismo, and developed a transparent and audacious landscape style, of medium shades and achieved chromatism. He also cultivated muralism, and successfully approached the development of the encaustic method, with works such as those presented in 1928 to the Central Association of Architects. As a portraitist, he also painted prominent figures of the time, with a colorful, daring and dense, sensual style. He also experimented with lithography. Most of his production is currently housed in the Museum that bears his name in Estella, although he is also represented in the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Fine Arts Museums of Alava, Vitoria, Bilbao and Buenos Aires, and the San Telmo Museum in San Sebastián, among other collections.