José María Murillo Bracho

JOSE MARIA MURILLO BRACHO (Seville, 1827 - Malaga, 1882).
"Vase".
Oil on panel.
Measurements: 33 x 23 cm; 52 x 41 cm (frame).
This work shows the artist's interest in capturing the qualities in a subtle, truthful and elegant way. For this reason, he hides the delicate transparent glass vase under the exuberance of the flowers. He uses different varieties of flowers, although he gives great prominence to the rose, not only in size but also through the tonality, whose reds stand out in their warmth with respect to the rest of the cold range colors.
Although born in Seville, José María Bracho Murillo -when he signed his work he inverted his surname- is considered to belong to the Malaga school. He lived until 1876 in Seville, and there he studied at the Academy of Noble Arts of Santa Isabel de Hungría, achieving there in 1844, at the age of seventeen, the first prize in the classes of Model in Plaster and Pieces. Among his teachers at that time was the famous painter Antonio María Esquivel, who would become his teacher. He worked as a professor of drawing in Cadiz in the middle of the century, and in 1854 he commissioned Esquivel to paint two great nude works: "La casta Susana" and "La mujer de Putifar" (Putifar's wife). He also taught line drawing and figure drawing at the Institute of Jerez de la Frontera, participating in the local exhibitions of 1858 and 1862, in which he won a silver medal. It seems that at that time he also sent works to the National Exhibition of Madrid. Later he will participate in the National of 1871, and in 1876 he is in Malaga, where the Academy of Fine Arts of San Telmo hires him as a teacher and acquires several of his paintings as didactic material for the class of coloring. In 1877 he presents several still lifes and fruit paintings in the exhibition held on the occasion of the visit of King Alfonso XIII to Malaga. Some of his works exhibited on this occasion were later acquired by the City Council of the city. In 1878 he participated again in the National Exhibition, with several paintings of flowers, grapes and other fruits. That same year he took part in the Universal Exhibition in Paris. Despite his deteriorated health, Murillo Bracho participates with several of his paintings in the local Exposition of 1880. He is currently represented in the Municipal Museum of Malaga.