José Vela Zanetti

JOSÉ VELA ZANETTI (Milagros, Burgos, 1913 - Burgos, 1999).
"Man with machete".
Mixed media on paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 53 x 67 cm; 83 x 97 cm (frame).

"Hombre con machete" constitutes a powerful plastic synthesis of the dignity of human labor, embodied in the monumental figure of a man who, with his back to the viewer, crouches down holding a machete. The composition, despite its apparent formal simplicity, is loaded with symbolic, structural and emotional strength. The decision to represent the character with his back turned is remarkable: it strips the subject of facial individuality to invest him with anonymous universality. The work is fully inscribed in the vast corpus of paintings in which Vela Zanetti exalts the nobility of physical effort, the connection between the human being and the earth, and the spirituality underlying work.

Born in Milagros, in the province of Burgos, he moved to León with his family when he was a child. There he held his first exhibition in 1931. Supported by his father, after finishing high school he travels to Madrid for a few months to see exhibitions and visit the Prado Museum. Shortly afterwards he obtained a scholarship to visit Italy, granted by the Provincial Council of León. As a consequence of the Spanish Civil War he went to the Dominican Republic, where he remained until 1960. In Santo Domingo he started, together with other exiled artists, the National School of Fine Arts. During this period he held exhibitions and projects in Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico and the United States. Throughout his life he received important public commissions, such as the mural inaugurated in 1953 at the UN headquarters, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, considered his most important work. Also noteworthy are the historical murals for the Provincial Council of Burgos or the frescoes of the old Ercilia Theater in Barahona, Dominican Republic. He was an academician of San Fernando, and Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Burgos. The Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid held in 2001, under the title "Antológica", a retrospective exhibition on the work of Vela Zanetti, the most important to date. Recently an exhibition commemorating the tenth anniversary of his death was held at the Ángeles Penche gallery in Madrid. His works are preserved in the funds of the Caja Rural de Burgos and the Vela Zanetti Foundation in León, as well as murals in various cities in Spain, Santo Domingo, the United States, Colombia and Switzerland. Currently, from May 17 to July 14, an important exhibition dedicated to the work of Vela Zanetti can be visited at the Fórum Evolución in Burgos, commemorating the centenary of his birth and the most complete anthology of this painter held to date.