Carlos Sobrino

CARLOS SOBRINO BUHIGAS (Pontevedra, 1885 - Vigo, 1978).
"Courtship".
Watercolor on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 40 x 48,5 cm; 61 x 71 cm (frame).

A character wearing a beret, archetypal Galician peasant, is sitting on the stairs of a dilapidated architecture, which looks like a building that has been half built. All we can see of him is his sun-bleached face, and his eyes are veiled by the visor. The girl in the foreground, with her flushed skin, turns to look at him, creating an implicit narrative: a human interaction that remains in suspense. The sobriety of the chromatic palette and the compartmentalization of the space around the residual architecture result in a captivating scene. Sobrino captured the Galician rural daily life with an approach that mixed costumbrismo and contained romanticism.

A Galician painter, disciple of Àngel Ferrant since 1902, Carlos Sobrino came from a family with a long artistic tradition. Although he wanted to go to Madrid to study at the San Fernando Academy, for family reasons he finally decided to study commerce. However, he later took up his vocation again and studied Fine Arts, becoming a disciple of Alejandro Ferrant and Fischermans. He then began to make himself known through the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, being awarded with honorable mention in 1908 and 1910. In 1915 he won the third medal for his painting "Cristo de Casal Dourado", and a year later he won the second class medal at the Universal Exposition of Panama for his urban landscape "Calle de ciudad gallega", a very representative work of his painting. Also during these years he held important exhibitions at the Iturrioz Salon in Madrid (1913) and at the photographic studio of Sáez-Mon in Pontevedra (1917). In addition to painting, Carlos Sobrino cultivated illustration, collaborating with magazines, newspapers and publishing houses, as well as making several posters. He traveled extensively around Galicia, painting its landscapes, its popular architecture and its ancient corners. He also carried out large-scale projects such as the series of tile mosaics that he made in 1927 in collaboration with the Sevillian company Mensaque Rodríguez, located in the Alameda de Pontevedra. He is currently represented in the Museum of Fine Arts of La Coruña and in the Afundación Collection, among others.