Ángeles Santos

ANGELES SANTOS TORROELLA (Portbou, 1911 - Madrid, 2013).
"Lady at the Window in Huesca", 1936-1937.
Oil on canvas.
Inscribed on the back.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 70 x 58 cm; 93 x 81 cm (frame).
In 1935, Ángeles Santos met her future husband, the painter Emilio Grau, and it was from then on that her palette became lighter, leaving behind the dark and greyish tones. This work is situated in that moment of transition, and in fact, it can be seen that the background still retains the cold tones, while the main figure is portrayed in warmer tones. It should also be noted that, during this period, the artist also lengthened the canon of the figures, thus presenting more stylised and elegant forms, as can be seen in the conception of the figure of the young woman. The image is shown to the viewer in an apparently unfinished form, revealing the sketch lines in the lower part of the arms and the waist, while the face shows great detail and careful modelling based on delicate shadows and brushstrokes that structure the volume of the facial features, demonstrating the artistic quality of Ángeles Santos' work.
The work of Angeles Santos Torroella can be divided into three stages which correspond to the three cities where she lived, Valladolid, Madrid and Barcelona. In this case, this work corresponds to the last stage, which began in Barcelona. In which the artist, from 1969 onwards, began to work in the landscape genre, painting the cities of Paris, Barcelona, Cadaqués and Sitges through an aesthetic influenced by her reconciliation with the painter Emilio Grau.
The sister of the poet and art critic Rafael Santos Torroella, she took up drawing and painting at the age of fourteen during her school years at the Esclavas Concepcionistas boarding school in Seville. Two years later he moved with his parents to Valladolid, where he was taught by the Italian painter Cellino Perotti and painted, at the age of 18, "Un mundo", a large-scale oil painting depicting a strange surrealist planet, now in the collection of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.After a couple of exhibitions in Valladolid, his participation in the IX Salón de Otoño in Madrid in 1929 increased his fame, resulting in the publication of articles about his painting (half expressionist, half surrealist) by intellectuals and critics such as Jorge Guillén, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Manuel Abril, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca, Guillermo Díaz-Plaja, Joan Teixidor, among others. In 1931 she held a solo exhibition in Paris and in 1932 she took part in the collective exhibition of Iberian Artists in San Sebastián, Copenhagen and the French capital. The following year she was invited to exhibit in the group show at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh (USA) and in 1936 she was included in the Spanish pavilion at the Venice Biennale.