Gabriel García Maroto

GABRIEL GARCÍA MAROTO (La Solana, Ciudad Real, 1889–Mexico City, 1969).
"Landscape of Mallorca," 1923.
Charcoal and watercolor on laid paper.
Signed and dated.
Measurements: 49 x 60 cm; 62 x 73.5 cm (frame).

Here, Gabriel García Maroto depicts a Mallorcan landscape using a combination of charcoal and watercolor executed with great delicacy. The composition is organized from an elevated viewpoint, with dark-trunked trees in the foreground, gently modulated masses of vegetation, a white house in the background, and the bluish line of the sea closing the horizon. The scene is rendered with a synthetic, almost constructive approach, in which the landscape is organized through curved rhythms, planes of muted color, and a clear commitment to formal refinement.

García Maroto avoids descriptive picturesque style and transforms the landscape into a modern composition, with simplified forms and an almost mural-like quality. The presence of the trees, with their robust silhouettes and organic profiles, lends the work a graphic intensity that contrasts with the luminous lightness of the background.

A painter, illustrator, writer, and editor, García Maroto was an active figure in the Spanish avant-garde circles of the first third of the 20th century. In 1919, he held a solo exhibition at the Ateneo de Madrid—the catalog of which is preserved in the Prado Museum’s Digital Library—and during the 1920s, he associated with artists and writers such as Rafael Barradas and Federico García Lorca. His work is represented at the Reina Sofía Museum, which holds numerous pieces by the artist and lists him as having been born in La Solana in 1889 and having died in Mexico City in 1969.