1870 -1945 · Basque Country, Paris and Spain of the Generation of 98

Under his full name, Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta brings together portraits of writers and aristocrats, bullfighting scenes and austere landscapes in a painting where Spain becomes presence and debate.

Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta was born in Eibar in 1870. He belonged to a Basque dynasty of artisans: his father Plácido mastered damascene and his uncle Daniel renewed ceramics. This environment trains his eye in the precision of metal, the ornament and the authority of the object. In 1887, he worked at the Museo del Prado copying Velazquez, Ribera, Goya and El Greco. This direct association with the old masters accompanied his entire career and explained his later role in the rediscovery of El Greco. After Rome, London and several trips, Zuloaga settled in Paris in 1890. After Rome, London and several trips, he settled in Paris in 1890. He met Maxime Dethomas, Rodin, Rusiñol, Casas and symbolist circles. His first research intersected naturalism, pointillism and impressionism, but he quickly turned away from Parisian clarity in favor of a denser figure and a palette of blacks, ochres and reds. Andalusia, then the landscapes and cities of Castile, fuel an iconography of bullfighters, dancers, beggars, processions and isolated personalities in front of an arid territory. This vision dialogues with the Generation of 98 and participates in the controversial construction of "black Spain". Zuloaga is, however, not a simple painter of types. His great worldly portraits show a remarkable capacity for adaptation. Countess Mathieu de Noailles asserts her intellectual singularity in one controlled pose; Carlos de Beistegui combines collection, distinction and cosmopolitanism; the self-portrait with the Basque beret depicts the artist himself as an active heir to his culture. Bullfighting works contrast the collective spectacle of the Corrida with Eibar with the painful silence of The Victim of the Festival. Exhibited in Paris, Brussels, Venice, New York and in several American capitals, Zuloaga enjoyed considerable international fame before 1914. He then worked in Zumaia, Madrid and Pedraza, where his houses and collections continued his conception of a dialogue between art, place and memory. He died in Madrid in 1945. The selection "Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta" notably highlights self-portrait Look with Basque beret and Carlos de Beistegui. His reading favors composition.

The full name recalls Zuloaga's family roots: Basque crafts, Prado, Paris and Castile come together in each portrait as layers of a chosen identity.