Imeldo Corral

IMELDO CORRAL GONZÁLEZ (Ferrol, 1889 - 1976).
"Corredoira".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 26 x 40 cm; 40 x 54 cm (frame).

Imeldo Corral decides to devote himself to painting due to his precarious health, which prevents him from doing any work that requires physical effort. Thus, he enters the School of Arts and Crafts of Ferrol at the age of eighteen, although after studying only one course he is forced to leave the school due to illness. Then he moved to Madrid, where he worked in oil, pastel and watercolor, and worked as a copyist at the Prado Museum. It was in this city where he took part in his first exhibition, a group exhibition of Galician painters held in 1912 at the Centro Gallego in Madrid, where he sent more than thirty paintings and fifty sketches, mainly landscapes and seascapes of Ferrol, as well as a self-portrait. In 1917 he took part in an exhibition in La Coruña, together with painters of the stature of Ribas, Germán Taibo, González del Blanco, Manuel Abelenda, etc. In 1918 he exhibits again in the same city on the occasion of the homage to the violinist Manolo Quiroga, and that same year he presents his first individual exhibition in Madrid, where he shows a varied group of landscapes. In 1923 he held an exhibition in Santiago, which was a success and a great social event. That same year he also exhibited in La Coruña. In 1928 he held an exhibition in Madrid, at the Palacio del Retiro, and in the following years he continued his exhibitions in Galicia, León and Barcelona. He will also show his works in Buenos Aires, in the Galician Center of the Argentine capital. Imeldo Corral received the Medal of Artistic Merit from the City Council of Ferrol, already very ill, on January 7, 1976. He was a full member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes del Rosario, of La Coruña, and honorary member of the Sociedad Artística Ferrolana. Considered one of the best Galician painters of his time, Corral developed a style centered on the poetics of color, and knew how to capture perfectly the changing light of Galician mornings and sunsets. He is currently represented in the Fine Arts Museums of La Coruña, Pontevedra and Vigo, the Municipal Bello Piñeiro and the Royal Galician Academy of Fine Arts.