HERNANDO VIÑES SOTO (Paris, 1904 - 1993).
Untitled, 1932.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Size: 73 x 92 cm; 97 x 116 cm (frame).
During 1932 Viñes spent some time in Palma de Mallorca, a stay which influenced his choice of subject matter, being a theme of inspiration. In this work the artist presents an image of clear Mediterranean inspiration, both in the forms and in the tones he uses. The artist depicts two women, each situated at one end of the composition. One of them faces the viewer, while the other has her back to the viewer, although she turns her face away from him. Behind her, the wide expanse of sea gives way to a group of houses, which are enclosed by mountains where the blue and violet tones blend together to create a dreamy atmosphere.
Born into an upper-class bourgeois family, Hernando Viñes Soto was introduced to the Parisian artistic circle by his uncle, the pianist and composer Ricardo Viñes. During the First World War he settled in Madrid, returning to Paris in 1918. There Pablo Picasso, a friend of his uncle's, after seeing his first drawings, advised him to continue along the same path and to perfect his knowledge as a self-taught artist. Viñes followed Picasso's advice, first entering the Academy of Sacred Art in Paris, where he was a pupil of Maurice Denis and Georges Desvallieres and then, in 1922, completing his training with André Lothe and Gino Severini. The following year he participated as a decorator in Manuel de Falla's "El retablo de Maese Pedro" and exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne. That same year, 1923, he came into contact, through his friend Manuel Ãngeles Ortiz, with the circle of young Spanish artists living in Paris: Francisco Bores, Luis Buñuel, Joaquín Peinado, Francisco García Lorca, Pancho Cossío, Rafael Alberti, Ismael de la Serna, etc. At the age of twenty he decided to devote himself fully to painting, and immediately obtained the support of two important critics, Tériade and Zervos, the latter being the director of "Cahiers d'Art". From then on he exhibited regularly at the Percier and Max Berger galleries in Paris. After the Second World War a very difficult period began for the painter, in which, despite numerous group and solo exhibitions, he did not achieve the notoriety that his brilliant beginnings had promised. It was not until 1965 and the major retrospective devoted to him by the Madrid Museum of Modern Art that he was finally recognised as one of the most brilliant painters of his generation. From that moment on, exhibitions followed one after the other in leading galleries all over Spain, such as Théo (Madrid and Valencia), Dalmau (Barcelona) and Ruiz (Santander). In the early eighties, important retrospective exhibitions were held at the Casa de España in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Santander and the Bonnat Museum in Bayonne. In 1988 he was awarded the Gold Medal of Arts and Letters by King Juan Carlos I. At the same time, his international fame grew as a result of exhibitions held in Germany, Denmark, the United States, Czechoslovakia, England and Japan. Far from schools and any hint of boastfulness, Viñes's work continued its path in France, and museums all over the world began to acquire his works. He is currently represented in the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Museums of Albi, Castres and Saint-Ouen in France, the Fine Arts Museums of Tel-Aviv, Buenos Aires and Prague, the Patio Herreriano Contemporary Art Museum in Valladolid and the ARTIUM in Vitoria, among many others.