Nicolás Martinez Ortiz

NICOLÁS MARTINEZ ORTIZ DE ZARATE (Bilbao, 1907 – Madrid, 1990).
Untitled, 1957.
Oil on canvas mounted on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 73 x 92 cm; 95 x 115 cm (frame).
The drawing, with its schematic and forcefully defined lines, employs deliberate formal disproportion in certain passages, which enhances the composition’s expressiveness. The pictorial surface is dominated by a vibrant range of reds, pinks, and yellows that interact and contrast with muted, grayish greens, creating a chromatic tension of great visual intensity. The color is applied with spontaneity and candor, with hardly any glazes or visible corrections, remaining exposed as the artist originally intended. This approach lends the paint an immediate freshness and a remarkable sense of fluidity.
The work is a representative example of Nicolás Martínez’s artistic language, synthesizing some of the essential characteristics of Spanish Expressionism. It brings together the chromatic exuberance inherited from Fauvism and certain formal solutions akin to Cubism, integrated into a fully recognizable artistic personality.
A painter, draftsman, watercolorist, and illustrator, Nicolás Martínez Ortiz de Zárate began his training at the School of Arts and Crafts in his native Bilbao. Thanks to various scholarships awarded by the City Council and the Bilbao Municipal Savings Bank, he later continued his studies in Paris, where he lived from 1924 to 1928 and attended the prestigious Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Upon his return, he engaged in an intense and varied body of work as a painter, poster artist, draftsman, and printmaker. Among his most notable projects are the murals at the Garellano barracks (1929), the Luciano restaurant (1930), the Casa del Huérfano del Miliciano (1936), and, after the Civil War, those created for the Carlton Hotel and Altos Hornos de Vizcaya. In 1937, he was also responsible for the designs on the Bank of Spain banknotes issued by the Basque Government.
During the 1930s, he established himself on the art scene through the Basque Art Exhibitions (1932 and 1935) and other official events, such as the exhibition organized in Barcelona in 1933 by the Association of Basque Artists. At the same time, he worked as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines of the era.
However, the period between the end of the Civil War and 1970 marked a prolonged hiatus in his public career. Removed from the main exhibition circuits, he devoted himself to genre painting inspired by the Basque Country, characterized by compositions with geometric forms and a cheerful, spontaneous, and luminous color palette.
Beginning in the 1970s, he resumed his exhibition activity with remarkable success, earning recognition that would last until the end of his life. His work is now part of major collections and institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, and the MAPFRE Foundation, as well as numerous public and private collections.