Rafael Zabaleta

RAFAEL ZABALETA FUENTES (Quesada, Jaén, 1907-1960).
"The slaughterer", 1949.
Oil on canvas.
Work reproduced in GUZMÁN PÉREZ, "Rafael Zabaleta. Catalographic Study. Oil paintings". Diputación de Jaén, 2010, p. 478.
-Exhibitions: Colegio de Arquitectos, Barcelona, 1965 (col. relation, the current one). Caja de Madrid, Barcelona and Madrid 1986, number 37 (reproduced in catalog, page 69).
-Bibliography: GUZMÁN, M., Catalogación..., number 233, pages 370-371.
GUZMÁN, M., La pintura de R. Zabaleta, page 374.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 81 x 65 cm; 97 x 82 cm (frame).
Following the words of the Catalog regarding this painting, the artist"presents us with a frontal composition, staging in a small enclosure the open figure of a cow; hanging by the hind legs and open in channel, behind which appears the butcher wielding the knife. It uses a frontal perspective, marking the interior space, in which governs a distributive system determined by bilateral symmetry, according to which a perpendicular axis divides it into two equal parts. It is set in warm colors, highlighting the reds of the flesh to contrast with the greenish gray environment and uses the ocher and earth passages, all of them very nuanced. The volumes are resolved with great amplitude. The inexpression of the character stands out in the painting, rigid and hieratic, without any gesticulation, he appears as another element, without the action that could be derived from his protagonism. This is a thematic first, which he returns to on two other occasions; Matarife, 1951 and Carnicero, 1957. Its remote precedent, as far as the theme is concerned, is to be found in Rembrandt and close to Solana. A work in which he links an environmental and local theme treated with the plastic language of modernity, in which inclinations towards Fauve and expressionist poetics are pointed out".

Chromatically the pictorial surface is dominated by reds, pinks and yellows that contrast with the greens, the latter of low tone and grayish. The color extends without emerging on the surface of the canvas, remaining definitively exposed at the first intention, so that the pictorial matter remains fresh and fluid. The work represents Zabaletian painting and defines by itself the Hispanic expressionism, with a lot of Fauvism and clear cubist connotations.
Born into a wealthy family, Rafael Zabaleta showed his love for painting since he was a child, so after finishing his high school studies he moved to Madrid and entered, in 1925, in the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. There he will have as teachers Lainez Alcalá, Cecilio Pla and Ignacio Pinazo, and in 1932 he participates for the first time in a group exhibition, that of the students of San Fernando. One of his works, entitled "La pareja," was selected to illustrate the critical review that Manuel Abril made for the magazine "Blanco y Negro". Three years later Zabaleta made his first trip to Paris, where he met and studied the works of the masters of contemporary painting. In 1937 he was appointed delegate of the National Artistic Treasure, and also around this time he began a series of drawings on the Civil War. At the end of the war he was denounced, and briefly spent time in the concentration camp of Higuera de Calatrava and in Jaen prison, where his two albums of drawings made during the war were seized. Finally freed, in 1940 he settles in Madrid, where he attends the gatherings at the Café Gijón and draws and paints at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. Two years later he visits Aurelio Biosca, director of the Madrid gallery Biosca, with a letter of introduction from the sculptor Manolo Hugué. There he held his first individual exhibition that same year, after being rejected at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. However, the following year he participates in the First Salón de los Once and becomes a member of the Academia Breve de Crítica de Arte de Eugenio d'Ors, to which Biosca also belonged. Zabaleta will take part in most of his Salones de los Once and anthological exhibitions. In 1945 Zabaleta participates in the group show "Floreros y bodegones" held at the National Museum of Modern Art, while he continues to exhibit individually and collectively in galleries in the capital. In 1947 he holds his first personal exhibition in Barcelona, at the Argos Gallery, and his first monograph is published. Two years later he travels again to Paris, coming into contact with Picasso, Óscar Domínguez, M. Ángeles Ortiz and others. The year of his definitive consecration will be 1951, when he holds a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid. In 1955 he was awarded the UNESCO Prize at the Hispano-American Biennial in Barcelona. That same year he participates in the Biennial of the Mediterranean held in Alexandria, and holds a solo exhibition in Bilbao. During his last years Zabaleta will be an artist already fully recognized, invited to the most important exhibitions and salons both in Spain and in foreign cities of the importance of Paris. The most important collection of his work is in the Zabaleta Museum of Quesada, although it is also present in the most prestigious museums of the world, in cities such as Buenos Aires, New York or Tokyo.