Anselmo Miguel Nieto

ANSELMO MIGUEL NIETO (Valladolid, 1881 - 1964).
"Mother and daughter", 1920.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower margin.
Measurements: 150 x 160 cm; 185 x 195 cm (frame).

In this scene, Nieto transcends the genre of the family portrait thanks to a masterful handling of the light and to the gesture of tenderness and maternal-filial respect printed in something as simple as holding hands. Thus, the violet lights of the sunset permeate everything: they give a coral patina to the whites and a satin sheen to the clothes. The flesh tones, likewise, present a delicate whiteness that does not idealize the features, conveying something essential of the kind yet firm character of the mother, and of the subtle demure of the daughter with long braids.

The son of a modest family, Nieto studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Valladolid, then directed by José Martí y Monsó. He went to Madrid in 1900 to continue his training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, where he was taught by Moreno Carbonero and Alejo Vera. During this period he met great artists, among them Pablo Picasso. After finishing his studies, he obtained a scholarship to travel to Rome and, in 1903, to Paris, where he stayed for two years. He settled permanently in Madrid in 1906, and was a regular at the artistic and literary gatherings that he shared with Baroja, Julio Camba, Valle-Inclán, Cossío and Benavente, among others. At that time his recognition took off both nationally and internationally, participating in the Fine Arts Exhibitions of Buenos Aires (1910) and Munich (1912) and being awarded a gold medal in both. In 1922 he went to Argentina with his friend Julio Romero de Torres, and returned again in 1937, this time staying for nine years. He returned to Spain in 1946, and in 1952 he was named academician of San Fernando. Anselmo Miguel Nieto's art evolves from an initial expressionist realism towards a militant modernism, which he conceives within rich luminosity and colorism. He is an extraordinary painter of portraits -especially of women-, but he interprets them in an allegorical and sensual sense, as Romero de Torres, Zuloaga, Rodríguez Acosta or Beltrán Massés made fashionable with him at that time. In the radiant luminosity and ease not incompatible with the vigorous realistic detail, he reminds us of the best Sorolla, who had a strong influence on the painters of Anselmo Miguel Nieto's generation. In short, it is halfway between realism and a vague idealistic and elegant sophistication, very impregnated with literature. Nieto is represented in the Fine Arts Museums of Pontevedra and Oviedo, the National Theater Museum in Almagro and the Academy of San Fernando, as well as in important national and foreign private collections.