JOAQUIN SOROLLA

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA (Valencia, 1863-Cercedilla, 1923).
"Rosebushes"
Oil on panel.
This work is registered with the BPS number 3095 in the next Joaquín Sorolla reasoned catalog by Blanca Pons Sorolla.
Provenance: Maria Sorolla Garcia (1889-1956), daughter of the artist.
Signed and located (Valencia) in the lower right corner.
Measures: 14.7 x 24.8 cm; 22 x 33 cm (frame).

Already in his school days, Joaquín Sorolla demonstrated his fondness for drawing and painting, attending the drawing classes taught by the sculptor Cayetano Capuz in the School of Craftsmen in the afternoons. Awarded after completing his preliminary studies at the Superior Normal School, he entered the prestigious San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia in 1879. Likewise, during his visits to Madrid, carried out in 1881 and 1882, he copied paintings by Velázquez, Ribera and El Greco in the Prado Museum. Two years later he achieved great success at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts with a history painting, which spurred him to apply for a scholarship to study at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Achieving his goal, in 1885 Sorolla left for Rome, remaining before arriving in Paris for several months. In the French capital he was impressed by the paintings of realists and painters who worked outdoors. At the end of his years in Rome, he returned to Valencia in 1889, settling the following year in Madrid. In 1892 Sorolla showed a new concern in his art, taking an interest in social problems by representing the sad scene of “Another Margarita!”, Awarded with a first-class medal in the National, and the following year in the Chicago International. This sensitivity will remain in his work until the end of the decade, in his representations of the Valencian coast. Little by little, however, the Valencian teacher will abandon the themes of unhappy children that we see in "Sad inheritance", which had been awarded at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900 and at the National Exhibition in Madrid a year later. Encouraged by the success of his shining images of the Mediterranean, and stimulated by his love for the light and the life of its sunny beaches, he focused on these scenes his most joyous and pleasant works, with which he will achieve international fame. In 1906 he held his first solo exhibition at the George Petit gallery in Paris, and he also demonstrated his skills as a portraitist. In 1908 the American Archer Milton Huntington, impressed by the artist's exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in London, sought to acquire two of his works for his Hispanic Society.