Rafael Zabaleta

RAFAEL ZABALETA FUENTES (Quesada, Jaén, 1907 - 1960).
"The slaughterer, 1951.
Oil on canvas.
Provenance: Private collection of the writer Camilo José Cela.
It has slight damage to the frame.
Measurements: 100 x 81 cm; 103 x 84 cm (frame).
It has an exhibition label on the back, indicating the origin.
Work collected in: FARALDO, R., Spectacle of Spanish painting. Stork. Madrid. 1953.
-GUZMÁN PÉREZ, M., Rafael Zabaleta. Intaglio study: oils and watercolors. Deputation of Jaén. Instituto de Estudios Giennenses, 2010. P 66-67.Fig. 287.
-AA.VV., Zabaleta Homage, page 192.
-D'ORS, E., R. Zabaleta, number 15 (reproduced).
-D'ORS, E., Goya, Picasso and Zabaleta, page 170 (reproduced).
-Faraldo, R., The spectacle of painting..., page 44 (reproduced).
-GAYA NUÑO, J.A., La pintura española de medio..., page 301 (reproduced).
-GUZMÁN, M., Catalogación..., number 282, page 447.
-GUZMÁN, M., La pintura de R. Zabaleta, pages 382- 383.
-SÁNCHEZ CAMARGO, M., "La gran exposición...," (reproduced).
Work exhibited in:
-Syra, Barcelona, 1952, number 18.
-Museum of the Park, Bilbao, 1955, number 21.
-Art and work, Charleroi, 1958, number 103.
-Dirección General de bellas Artes, Madrid, 1961, number 53 (reproduced in catalog).

In an interior with a popular atmosphere, full of elements typical of a butcher's shop, he places two characters: one male and one female. Both are about to butcher a pig that remains suspended by its hind legs and with its back open. The man, in frontal position, shows a figure full of hieratism but with a strong plastic expression, which is almost covered by the animal, while the woman, with large and rounded volumes, remains in profile, in an attitude of beginning her work, with a face of sweet and absent expression. Two compositions with their own identity structure the canvas. Animal and butcher form a composition, whose forms are arranged symmetrically; while the woman and the adjacent elements are arranged with a pyramidal conception, unifying this duality by the wise disposition of the lines of force of this second unit. The schematic and very defined drawing is in some points disproportionate for the sake of expressiveness. 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 the prison of Jaen, where the two albums of drawings made during the war were seized.