Emilio Sala Francés

EMILIO SALA FRANCÉS (Alcoy, Alicante, 1850 – Madrid, 1910).
“Figure.”
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 61 x 70 cm; 76 x 85 cm (frame).

Emilio Sala trained at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia, where he was a student of his cousin, the painter Plácido Francés. In 1871, he made his first trip to Madrid, where he devoted himself to studying and copying the works of the masters at the Prado Museum, especially those by Velázquez. At that time, he began participating in the National Fine Arts Exhibitions, winning first prize in the 1878 and 1881 editions. In 1885, he traveled to Rome on a scholarship to study the Italian Renaissance, and there he befriended Francisco Padilla, Federico de Madrazo, and Joaquín Sorolla. Later, he transferred his scholarship and moved to Paris, where he entered the 1889 World’s Fair and won a second medal. In 1891, he won the Gold Medal at the Berlin Exhibition. He participated in the Salon des Beaux-Arts on the Champs-Élysées for several years, exhibiting works of a literary nature, genre paintings, and some portraits. Beginning in 1890, he moved away from history painting—which was in high demand in Spain but not highly valued in France—and devoted himself to genre painting, landscape, and illustration for publications such as *Blanco y Negro* and *La Ilustración Española y Americana*. Upon his return to Spain, he settled permanently in Madrid, and in 1906, the chair of Theory and Aesthetics of Color was created for him at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts. Among his students, María Blanchard and Cecilio Pla stood out, and he published “La gramática del color,” a work that was used as a textbook at the Schools of Fine Arts in Madrid and Barcelona. In the capital, Sala opened his own studio and took part in the decoration of the Anglada and Mazarredo palaces. He was named an Academician of Merit at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and received the Cross of St. Michael (Munich, 1885) and the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (1899). Emilio Sala’s work is represented in the Hispanic Society of New York, the Prado Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, the Municipal Fine Arts Museums of Granada, Valencia, l’Empordà, Cáceres, Santander, and Málaga, the Lázaro Galdiano Museum, the Camón Aznar Museum, the Almagro Theater Museum, and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile, among many others.