Rafael Zabaleta

RAFAEL ZABALETA FUENTES (Quesada, Jaén, 1907 - 1960).
"Landscape of Zújar", 1938.
Oil on canvas.
Work reproduced in Guzmán Pérez 79, page 129.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 70 x 90 cm; 81,5 x 102 cm (frame).
In this work the artist presents us a landscape conceived with a sober chromatism, based on the interrelation of the greens with the pink lands, being the passages in charge of the ochers and soft violets, which in turn contrast without stridencies. The technique is very direct, incorporating the color on wet in the primary stain and in semi-wet afterwards. The work of realistic connotations is close to the postulates of the Vallecas School, showing a special interest in the telluric. It is worth mentioning that the work goes beyond the purely pictorial, awakening a certain nostalgia or emotion linked to the biography of the artist, who portrays the bridge of Zújar, being this one of the places he crossed, when he finished his mission in the civil war.
Born in the bosom of a well-to-do family, Rafael Zabaleta manifested his love for painting since he was a child, so after finishing his high school studies he moved to Madrid and entered, in 1925, the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando School of Fine Arts). 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 released, 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 obtained 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.