Arturo Souto

ARTURO SOUTO FEIJOO (Pontevedra, 1902 - Mexico City, 1964).
"Mexican lady".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Signed.
It presents restorations.
Measurements: 101 x 81 cm; 123 x 102 cm (frame).

The burgundy background gives a passionate note to this portrait of a Mexican lady. Seated on a velvet armchair, the woman, with curly hair and slightly awned flesh tones, wears an elegant bodice and looks at us with a self-absorbed expression.

Son and disciple of the painter Alfredo Souto, Arturo lived in his youth between Oviedo, Zaragoza, Lugo and La Coruña, until he settled in Seville, where he studied between 1916 and 1920 at the Industrial School of Arts and Crafts and Fine Arts. By paternal indications he decided to study to become a quantity surveyor once again in Galicia, where the rural and maritime environments would have a decisive influence on Souto's initial plastic vision. In 1922, determined to devote himself to painting, he settled in Madrid and entered the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he coincided with Salvador Dalí and other renowned artists. A fan of social gatherings, he lived with writers and intellectuals, and became friends with Valle Inclán. The year after his arrival in Madrid, in 1923, he marries Carmen Alabarce. In 1925 he held his first individual exhibition. That same year he participates in the Manifesto of the Iberians, with a group of nonconformists positioned against the official art of the Spain of the time. With them he held an exhibition at the Palacio del Retiro that was a real revolution. During these years Souto lived on his father's pension and on what he obtained from decorating porcelain, and he managed to raise enough funds to make his first trip to Paris in 1926. In 1931 he will return to the city of the Seine, this time thanks to a scholarship of the Diputación de Pontevedra. Enthusiastic about the new aesthetic currents he met in Paris, he worked intensely and became interested in Giorgio de Chirico, who had a great influence on his work. Already in Spain, he participates in important group exhibitions and holds exhibitions in Madrid (from 1928), Pontevedra (1928), Santiago de Compostela (1930), La Coruña (1931), Vigo (1932) and other locations. During these years he experimented with different techniques, and developed a work marked by a certain decadence. In 1931 he visits several European museums thanks to a new grant from the Diputación, and signs in Madrid the manifesto of the Agrupación Gremial de Artistas Plásticos. His exhibitions follow one after the other all over Spain, and he makes the international leap showing his work in Copenhagen and Berlin. In 1934 he was granted a scholarship to the Spanish Academy in Rome, where he remained until 1936. On his return to Spain he was surprised by the National Uprising, and joined the Republican side, devoting himself to propaganda work with drawings and posters. In 1937 he participates in the International Exposition of Paris, in the pavilion designed by Sert where Picasso's "Guernica" was located. After the war he went into exile, first in Bordeaux and then in Havana. He visited the United States and finally settled in Mexico in 1942. In 1962 he returned to Spain, where he held some exhibitions, although he finally died in Mexico in 1964, where he had traveled to liquidate his interests in the city and to be able to settle definitively in Spain. He is currently represented in the NovaCaixaGalicia Collection, the Museum of Pontevedra and other collections, both public and private.