Mariano Moré Cors

MARIANO MORÉ CORS (Gijón, Asturias, 1899 - Oviedo, 1974)
"Receiving the fishing".
Oil on canvas.
We are grateful for the collaboration in the cataloguing to Mr. Juan Carlos Aparicio Vega, Department of History of Art of the University of Oviedo.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 76.5 x 106 cm; 90 x 117 cm (frame).
It is a seafaring scene set in the dock of Gijón and ascribed to the last period of the painter Mariano Moré, as evidenced by his brushstroke, chromatic treatment and figures. The piece is representative of his themes related to the sea, in which he usually situates figures engaged in their tasks or in an attitude of waiting, always in relation to the coastal edge, in this case of an urban nature.

Mariano Moré Cors (1899-1974) was an artist who, although he lived in Madrid continuously from 1917 until his death in 1974, maintained a constant link with Asturias, his homeland, to which he returned every year. His career was characterized by a discreet activity in the exhibition field, since he worked mostly by commission, which explains the scarcity of personal exhibitions in the capital. Nevertheless, he came to exhibit his work alone in spaces such as the Dardo gallery in 1949 and the Toisón hall in 1955, the latter still open in the early 1990s and remembered by some direct witnesses. In this same establishment, Moré participated in a group show held in 1961 under the theme of the sea, a subject that, as will be seen, is key to understanding his work.
The documentation of his work was not systematically organized by the artist himself, who did not leave a structured archive or an exhaustive list of his works. However, his son, Félix Moré, now deceased, made a remarkable compilation effort by gathering press clippings, hand catalogs and various documents related to his father's pictorial production. This work was especially valuable for the subsequent constitution of the artist's open archive, which for more than two decades has been kept in the Museo Casa Natal de Jovellanos, the fine arts museum of Gijón, an institution where I worked for many years and with which I still maintain a close relationship.
In relation to the specific work to which we refer, it is undoubtedly a painting signed by Mariano Moré, which fully responds to his style and his characteristic themes. Although we do not have specific documentation that identifies it conclusively, it is possible to place it chronologically around the late 1950s or early sixties, since his technique and treatment of color correspond to that moment of his evolution. At that stage, his painting became looser, with a less saturated palette and a more open composition compared to the works of the years of the autarchy, marked by a greater formal rigor.
The scene depicted is part of his seafaring theme, a constant throughout his 56 years of production, between 1918 and 1974. It was precisely these sea scenes that brought him the greatest recognition, as evidenced by works such as Costa asturiana and Puerto de Lastres, both of which won awards in national competitions and were acquired by the State for the collection of the current Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. In the group exhibition held at the Toisón Hall in 1961, under the title El mar. 100 paintings with a seafaring theme, Moré presented four paintings: Mar gruesa, Velero a la vista, Pescadores de Gijón and Mar Cantábrico. It is possible that the painting in question corresponds to Velero a la vista, given that in the background of the scene all the characters are looking towards a small boat that could be a trainer, a fishing boat used at that time, possibly under sail.
In addition to these general compositions of maritime atmosphere, Mariano Moré frequently cultivated genre scenes centered in Gijón. Already in the 1949 Dardo exhibition he presented Trainera entrando en el puerto de Gijón, and in the large exhibition organized at the Palacio de Revillagigedo in 1956 he included Estudio de puerto local, which confirms his repeated dedication to this type of sequences linked to the landscape and seafaring life of the Asturian coast, which constitute an essential part of his artistic legacy.