1798 -1856 · Caravaca de la Cruz, Rome and Madrid

Direct portraits, open landscapes and neoclassical rigor give Rafael Tegeo a unique place in romantic Spain.

Rafael Tegeo Diaz was born in Caravaca de la Cruz in 1798 and died in Madrid in 1856. He began his training in Murcia, continued his studies at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid then stayed in Rome between 1824 and 1827. The study of antiquity, Raphael and Italian masters brought him a firm drawing, but his work evolved towards a more direct romantic sensitivity. Tegeo painted religious, historical and mythological subjects before becoming one of the sought-after portraitists of Isabella II's Spain. He often refused the theatrical setting: the face, posture and clear light were enough to define the model. In his retrospective effigies of Don Alvaro de Bazân, the admiral José Navarro and Antonio Valdés y Fernandez Bazân, the uniform, the badges and the attitude build an official naval memory without erasing individuality. The portrait of Angela Tegeo is in a more intimate register, where family proximity softens the protocol. Tegeo is also innovative when he places models in the middle of the landscape, mixing portrait and nature with a freedom that announces Spanish romanticism. A liberal artist engaged in institutional life, he became director of the San Fernando Academy then of the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture, future Prado. His career thus links academic learning, modern portraiture and heritage construction national. The "Rafael Tegeo Diaz" selection notably compares Portrait of Don Alvaro de Bazân and Portrait of Admiral José Navarro. His reading favors the story.

Tegeo reduces the portrait to the essential: a clear light, an exact posture and a sometimes open landscape are enough to bring the individual into the story.