Aurelio García Lesmes

AURELIO GARCÍA LESMES (Valladolid, 1884-Mexico City, 1942).
Untitled.
Oil on canvas.
It has a slight restoration in the middle left area.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 67 x 89 cm.
Aurelio García Lesmes was a Spanish landscape painter nationalized Mexican. He entered very young in the School of Arts and Trades of his native city, where he studied with José Martí y Monsó. In 1903 he obtained a government scholarship to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, in Madrid. There he studied with Antonio Muñoz Degrain, who inspired him to become a landscape painter. Beginning in 1906, he became a regular participant in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts, and won several prizes, culminating in 1926 with a First Class award. After that success, he opted to return to Valladolid, becoming a drawing teacher at the Núñez de Arce Institute. His first major personal exhibition took place at the Museum of Modern Art (Madrid) in 1931. During the Second Spanish Republic, he obtained a position as a drawing teacher in Valladolid. As a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, he spent the war creating propaganda posters and murals. Shortly before the end of the war, he fled to France and, in May 1939, left for Mexico, along with a large number of exiles. He settled in Mexico City, opened a small studio and obtained a new appointment as a teacher at the Luis Vives Institute. He kept in close contact with his fellow Spanish refugees and in 1941 he obtained Mexican nationality.