Néstor Martín

NÉSTOR MARTÍN- FERNÁNDEZ LA TORRE (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1887 - 1938).
Untitled from the series "Women of Spain", 1914.
Engraving.
Handwritten signature.
Measurements: 31 x 19 cm.

The series "Women of Spain" of Néstor Martín is a group of key works within his production, that reflect his particular vision of the identity and the Spanish femininity of the beginning of the 20th century. It represents an idealized and symbolic vision of Spanish women, often with a focus on the traditional figure, folkloric dress and accessories of the time (such as mantillas, combs and fans).

Néstor Martín Fernández was a painter framed within European symbolism and modernism, author of an oeuvre unanimously considered key to understanding these artistic movements. He began to draw as a child, and in 1899 his first teacher was the Catalan landscape painter Eliseo Meifrén, by whose hand he painted his first picture. When he was fifteen he moved to Madrid and there he became a disciple of Rafael Hidalgo de Caviedes. In 1904 he began a trip around Europe that would take him to Paris, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges and London. However, it was his years in Paris that ended up shaping his personal language, giving him a great decorative scope, since he carried out several projects of ornamentation of public buildings and scenery and figurine design. On his return to Spain he held his first exhibition in 1908, at the Círculo Ecuestre in Barcelona, and the following year he exhibited at the prestigious Sala Parés in the same city. A few years later he exhibited in another of the key halls of modernism, the Faianç Català (1911). He then returned to London and there he executed a series of etchings that won him first prize at the London Municipal School. In the following years he continued to show his work in exhibitions in Paris and Madrid.