Carlos Ruano LLopis

CARLOS RUANO LLOPIS (Alicante, 1879 - Mexico City, 1950) .
"Fair poster".
Oil on canvas.
Presents faults and restorations.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 190 x 111 cm.
The scene takes place in a bullring, where the bustle, the light and the dramatic tension of the moment are combined in a theatrical composition. In the foreground, two female figures, two manolas, are the visual protagonists. One of them stands out for her imposing presence, reinforced by the silhouette of a large comb that protrudes above her head and is elegantly silhouetted against the background of the illuminated bullfights. She wears a black mantilla, a traditional adornment, and looks directly at the spectator. Next to her, a second female figure, also dressed in traditional costume, is intensely observing the development of the bullfight in the ring.
In the background, slightly off-center and captured with looser brushstrokes, the climax of a fight is represented. The bullfighter, with his cape unfolded, executes a veronica before the bull's charge. The scene is captured with dynamism, but without losing the compositional balance that characterizes the work of Carlos Ruano Llopis. The painting responds to the characteristic style of Ruano Llopis, master of bullfighting painting and visual chronicler of bullfighting in the first half of the 20th century.
Painter and poster artist trained at the School of Fine Arts of San Carlos, he won the gold medal at the Regional Exhibition of Valencia in 1909. In 1912 he made the first of his famous bullfighting posters. He exhibited in Valencia, Madrid, Bilbao, Marseilles and Paris, and collaborated with "La Esfera", "Mundo Gráfico", "El Mercantil Valenciano", etc. In 1934 he settled permanently in Mexico and promoted his international career, with personal exhibitions in Mexico (1938, 1949), Caracas (1949), New York (1945) and Philadelphia. He is considered today the best bullfighting poster artist, a genre in which he established a prototype that has endured to the present day.