Manuel Abelenda

MANUEL ABELENDA ZAPATA (Perillo, A Coruña, 1889 - 1957).
"Still life".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 60 x 80 cm.
Born in the bosom of a very humble family, Manuel Abelenda began his career dedicated to artisan works before focusing on painting. He was then trained at the School of Arts and Crafts in his hometown, where he soon stood out and won modest prizes of the time. Around this time he obtained a pension from the Diputación Provincial which allowed him to move to Madrid, where he attended classes at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. In Madrid his teacher was Antonio Muñoz Degrain, from whom he extracted the essential fundamentals to bring to his work some landscapes of marked personality, in which the influence of the master merges with his Galician contribution. From Muñoz Degrain he learned the procedure of accentuating the depth of the landscape by intensifying the hallmarks of light between the different planes. In the years preceding the European war he traveled to Rome, on a scholarship from the Academy of Fine Arts of A Coruña, and on his return he began to show his work in numerous exhibitions both in Galicia and in Madrid and Barcelona. Again with a scholarship from the Diputación de A Coruña, Abelenda traveled to Italy, Switzerland and France in 1930. Focused on landscape painting, his work began to win the success of the public and critics, a success that was confirmed when he won the third medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1943. Since then he has continued to be distinguished by various institutions, and his work has been shown in Europe and America. His work is currently preserved in all the museums of Galicia, as well as in the Caixa Nova Collection, the María José Jove Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid and in several South American museums.