1870 -1945 · Eibar, Paris, Castile and Spanish portrait

Social portraits, Castilian landscapes, bullfighters and popular figures give Ignacio Zuloaga a serious Spain, built between the memory of old masters and international success.

Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta was born in Eibar in 1870 into an important family of Basque artisans. His father Plácido is a damascener and his uncle Daniel a ceramist; the family workshop transmitted to him very early on a taste for materials, objects and tradition. In 1887, Zuloaga copied at Prado Velázquez, Ribera, Goya and Le Greco. These masters remained the basis of a painting which never confused modernity and a break with history. After trips to Italy and England, he moved to Paris in 1890. He attended the La Palette academy, symbolist circles and artists like Rusiñol, Casas, Dethomas and Rodin. He occasionally experimented with impressionism and pointillism, but sought soon a darker language, based on drawing, lands and the authority of the figure. Her stays in Andalusia, then her exploration of Castile, provided her with a popular Spanish repertoire: dancers, dwarves, bullfighters, processions, villages and austere landscapes. This vision meets the sensitivity of writers of the Generation of 98, while sparking debate around "black Spain". The Victim of the Festival refuses the easy heroism of bullfighting: the injured body and the aftermath of the show expose its violence. Corrida in Eibar, on the contrary, organizes the crowd, the arena and the movement like a local memory. Zuloaga is also one of the great portraitists internationals of his time. Countess Mathieu de Noailles stands out with theatricality, intelligence and control of pose; Carlos de Beistegui embodies cosmopolitan elegance. In the Self-portrait with the Basque beret, costume, look and material build a claimed identity. From 1909, his American exhibitions reinforced an already European reputation. Passionate collector of Greco and Goya, he actively contributed to their rediscovery. After the First World War, he shared his life between the Basque Country, Madrid and Pedraza. He died in Madrid in 1945 and left a work whose power today requires distinguishing observation, cultural construction and context politics. The "Ignacio Zuloaga" selection notably compares Self-portrait with Basque beret and Portrait of Countess Mathieu de Noailles. His reading favors figures.

Zuloaga composes identity like a serious theater: the model advances, but behind him the landscape, the costume and the memory of the masters speak just as much.