ARTIST: Jose Mateu San Hilario (Spanish, born 1941)
NAME: Mother with Baby
MEDIUM: oil on canvas
CONDITION: Very good. Restretched. No visible inpaint under UV light.
SIGHT SIZE: 21 x 18 inches / 53 x 45 cm
FRAME SIZE: unframed
SIGNATURE: lower right
PROVENANCE: Arnot Gallery NY (has gallery stamp on verso)
SKU#: 118803
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BIOGRAPHY:
Jose Mateu San Hilario, known artistically as ROYO, was born in Valencia on 20 December 1941, and his desire to paint began in earliest childhood. When he was nine his father a doctor with a strong interest in art acknowledged his ability and began to employ private tutors to instruct him in drawing, painting and sculpture. At 14, Royo enrolled at the San Carlos Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia, continuing lessons privately from the age of 18 with Adolfo Ferrer Amblar. To supplement his art-historical studies he visited the major museums of Europe, seeing at first hand works that would inspire and influence him, including paintings by Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Joaquin Sorolla. In his twenties, he began to exhibit his canvases in Spain and Portugal in 1968, soon receiving commissions for portraits of King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and a number of prominent political figures. During the 1970s and 1980s he worked on mastering light and shadow, colour and vibrancy as he focused on painting the land of his birth, recreating the atmosphere and brilliant sunlight of the Mediterranean.