Carlos Vazquez

CARLOS VÁZQUEZ ÚBEDA (Ciudad Real, 1869 - Barcelona, 1944).
"Pitusa", 1905.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner. Titled in the upper right corner.
Published in Hojas Selectas in 1906. Page 320.
Measurements: 56 x 33 cm; 73 x 49 cm (frame).

Carlos Vázquez Úbeda collaborated with the magazine Hojas Selectas as illustrator and draftsman in the first years of the 20th century, participating in one of the most prestigious cultural and literary publications of modernist Barcelona. Founded in 1902 by the publishing house Salvat, Hojas Selectas was characterized by its careful graphic design and for bringing together literary texts, cultural articles and illustrations by prominent artists of the time.

Vázquez Úbeda's participation was especially relevant for his ability to combine academic drawing, modernist elegance and narrative sensibility. His illustrations accompanied stories, genre scenes and literary texts, providing a visual refinement very much in keeping with the bourgeois and intellectual taste of the time. The artist was particularly noted for the delicacy of his strokes, his compositional precision and the care with which he depicted figures and environments.

His collaboration with Hojas Selectas is important because it placed him within the circle of the most outstanding illustrators and graphic artists in Catalonia at the beginning of the 20th century, at a time when illustration acquired a fundamental role in the aesthetic renovation of periodical publications.

A painter, illustrator and poster artist, Vázquez trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he was a disciple of Carlos de Haes. He received a grant from the Diputación de Ciudad Real and completed his studies in France and Italy, finally settling in Paris, where he worked with León Bonnat. He assiduously sent his works to national and foreign competitions, obtaining third medal in the National of 1892, second in the editions of 1899 and 1901, first in that of 1910 and decoration in 1904. He participated in the Paris Salons, where he obtained honorable mention in 1890, third medal in 1904 and second in 1907. He was also awarded first medal at the International Exposition of Barcelona in 1899, silver medal at the Universal Exposition of Paris in 1910 and in Buenos Aires in 1915, the same year in which he won the gold medal in San Francisco. He was a member of the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, knight of the French Legion of Honor, honorary member of the Hispanic Society of America, president of the Artistic Circle and the Artistic-Literary Society of Barcelona, and was decorated with the Grand Cross of Alfonso XII and the Red Eagle of Germany. He is represented in the Prado Museum, as well as in outstanding private collections.