Román Navarro

ROMÁN NAVARRO GARCÍA DE VINUESA (La Coruña, 1854 - 1928).
"Galician Fisherwomen", 1876.
Charcoal and white grease pencil on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 22 x 29 cm; 45 x 53 cm (frame).

Román Navarro combined his military career with his painting studies at the School of Arts and Crafts of La Coruña. Thanks to a scholarship from the Diputación, he furthered his artistic training in Rome and later traveled around Europe. Upon his return, he was assigned to Barcelona as a drawing teacher and then returned to La Coruña as a teacher and director of the School of Arts and Crafts. There he taught outstanding painters such as Souto Cuero, Morlli, Vaamonde, Francisco Llorens and Luis Mosquera. He collaborated in magazines of the time and participated in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts of 1890 and 1897, obtaining an honorable mention in the latter. He was also awarded a gold medal at the Santiago de Compostela Exhibition in 1888 and an honorable mention at the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona in 1898. After retiring from military life, he intensified his work as a painter, participating in the Galician Regional Exhibitions of 1917 and 1923 in La Coruña, and working uninterruptedly until his death. In his work, Navarro excelled in drawing, especially with Cervantine themes, and in painting he was inclined towards equine, hunting and, above all, military themes, following the creative line of the Catalan and also military painter Josep Cusachs, a very popular genre during the Restoration. However, portraiture was the genre in which he excelled the most. In this field, it is worth mentioning the portrait of "Cardenal Payá" (Diputación de La Coruña) and the portrait of King Alfonso XII on horseback, a work belonging to the collection of the Prado Museum that earned him the medal in the National of 1897. Other portraits of the monarchs by this painter are known, such as the one in the Army Museum in Madrid. Román Navarro is also represented in the Diputación de La Coruña, several museums in Galicia, various Ministries and the Palacio de Oriente.