EUGENIO HERMOSO (Fregenal de la Sierra, Badajoz, 1883 - Madrid, 1963).
"Portrait of a child", 1910.
Oil on canvas.
With restorations.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Size: 139 x 91 cm; 149 x 101 cm (frame).
Country scene in which the undoubted protagonist is a boy dressed in a regionalist costume of Tyrolean type. It is a standing portrait in which the protagonist is the centre and occupies almost the entire canvas. The young boy in the scene is in the centre, staring straight ahead at the viewer posing before him, with one hand resting on his waist and the other holding a wooden stick. The boy, dressed in green trousers with braces and a white shirt, has two feathers protruding from his head. In the background of the composition, the silhouette of the mountains can be seen, which are defined in a misty atmosphere in the last plane of the scene. Eugenio Hermoso painted this painting with a loose, doughy brushstroke based on patches of colour, with a rich chromatic palette in which greens and browns predominate in all their shades, with the red of the tie worn by the boy standing out. The personal and unmistakable style of the modernist and colourist impressionism of his early works can be appreciated. As an exceptional portraitist, he created a valuable iconographic gallery, the contemplation of which brings us closer to the way of life of the simple people of the village.
Eugenio Hermoso began his studies at the Santa Isabel de Hungría School of Fine Arts in Seville, with a scholarship from the City Council and the Diputación de Badajoz. In 1901 he moved to Madrid to continue his training at the San Fernando School, where he also devoted himself to making copies of the great masters in the Prado Museum. During these years he frequented the Ateneo and the Círculo de Bellas Artes, and was praised by intellectuals such as Pío Baroja, Díaz Canedo and Juan Ramón Jiménez. He then embarked on a study trip that took him to France and Belgium, as well as to the most important Italian cities: Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice and Milan. On this trip Eugenio Hermoso came into contact with the European avant-garde, meeting the Impressionists and admiring the portraits of Egyptian sarcophagi from the Roman period. In 1912 he embarked for England, exhibiting his work in London that same year. In 1918 he settled permanently in Madrid. From then on he frequented the evening gatherings at the café Nuevo Levante, attended by the brothers Ricardo and Pío Baroja, Ignacio Zuloaga, José Gutiérrez Solana and Rafael de Penagos, among others, and the café Maisón Doré, together with Jacinto Benavente, Manuel and Antonio Machado and Francisco Villaespesa. In 1922 he held his first major exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Madrid, which was a great success with the public and sales. A professor at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, he was appointed an academician in 1941. Seven years later he was awarded the medal of honour at the National Academy. Under the pseudonym of Francisco Teodoro de Nertóbriga he published his "Autobiography" in 1955, and signed his satirical paintings. He is mainly represented in the Fine Arts Museums of Badajoz and Seville, as well as in other public and private collections.