Tomás Muñoz Lucena

TOMÁS MUÑOZ LUCENA (Andalusia, 1860- Madrid, 1943).
Untitled.
Oil on panel.
Signed in the intermediate inferior zone.
Measurements: 46 x 38 cm.
Tomás Muñoz Lucena begins his formation in the Cordovan school of painting of Rafael Romero Barros. Then he enters the recently inaugurated School of Fine Arts of Cordoba, where he coincides with Julio Romero de Torres and Mateo Inurria. Thanks to his talent he obtained a scholarship from the Diputación Provincial to study at the Escuela de San Fernando in Madrid in 1879. There he will be a disciple of Federico de Madrazo. Again with a scholarship from the Diputación, Muñoz Lucena made a trip to Rome, where he acquired the new impressionist tendency, being in fact considered the first Cordovan painter in this style. In 1881, he took part for the first time in the National Exhibition in Madrid, and three years later he sent from Rome his work "Ofelia", which caused admiration but was not awarded a prize. Frustrated by this unjust marginalization, undoubtedly due to the fact that his works were not the themes sought by the jury of the National Exhibitions, which valued history themes above all, Muñoz Lucena seriously reconsidered the theme of the works he would send to these competitions. Thus, entering the game of history painting, he sent to the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1887 his contribution to the genre, giving it also the "necrophiliac" air that was so much to the taste of the jurors. The painting, magnificent, was entitled "The Corpse of Alvarez de Castro", exalting the general who resisted for months the siege of Girona by the French, and was finally awarded a second medal. With this official recognition, Muñoz Lucena's prestige increased considerably, and his successes followed. Again he obtained a second medal in 1890 and, finally, a first medal in 1901 for his painting "Plegaria en la ermita de Córdoba". He also took part in foreign competitions, and in 1900 he was awarded a bronze medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris. He was a teacher from 1894, the year in which he was appointed director of drawing at the Institute of Cordoba, and later he also taught in Granada and Seville. In the last years of the 19th century he also began to collaborate with magazines such as "Blanco y Negro" and "La Ilustración Española y Americana", forming part of the group of illustrators who marked a new path in the graphic arts at the beginning of the 20th century. He retired in 1930, and decided to move to Madrid, where he lived until his death in 1943. In addition to painting, he also devoted himself to illustration, collaborating with magazines such as "Blanco y Negro", to whose first generation he belonged. Works by Muñoz Lucena are preserved in the Prado Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts of La Coruña, the Diputación de Córdoba, the University of Granada and the Romantic Museum of Madrid.