José Vela Zanetti

JOSÉ VELA ZANETTI (Milagros, Burgos, 1913 - Burgos, 1999).
"Peasant", 1977.
Mixed media on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 72 x 50 cm; 79 x 56 cm (frame).

Vela Zanetti is considered the painter of the soul of Castile, since he knew how to portray masterfully his land through its heroic people, those hard-working human beings, workers from sunrise to sunset. He is the painter of the dignity of man, and in fact all his work revolves around the human being, both the work he did in Spain and the work he painted during his long exile in the Dominican Republic. Thus, in each of his paintings one can appreciate the sacred and dignified condition of man.

Born in Milagros, in the province of Burgos, he moved to León with his family when he was a child. There he held his first exhibition in 1931. Supported by his father, after finishing high school he traveled to Madrid for a few months to see exhibitions and visit the Prado Museum. Shortly afterwards he obtained a scholarship to visit Italy, granted by the Provincial Council of León. As a consequence of the Spanish Civil War he went to the Dominican Republic, where he remained until 1960. In Santo Domingo he started, together with other exiled artists, the National School of Fine Arts. During this period he held exhibitions and projects in Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico and the United States. In 1951 the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation of New York awarded him a grant for a singular project: the creation of a large-scale mural for one of the main spaces of the United Nations headquarters, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This project definitively catapulted the master from Burgos, and is today considered his most important work both for its symbolic relevance and for its expressiveness and artistic quality. He himself said of this work: "I hope that those who contemplate this mural will realize that peace must be won, not once and forever, but every day, remembering the sufferings of the past and making real what men aspire to for the future". Vela Zanetti also painted other important murals, such as those on historical themes for the Provincial Council of Burgos or the frescoes of the old Ercilia Theater in Barahona, Dominican Republic. He was an academician of San Fernando, and Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Burgos. The Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid held in 2001, under the title "Antológica", a retrospective exhibition on the work of Vela Zanetti, the most important to date. In 2009 an exhibition commemorating the tenth anniversary of his death was held at the Ángeles Penche gallery in Madrid. Soon, an important exhibition dedicated to the work of Vela Zanetti was held at the Fórum Evolución in Burgos, commemorating the centenary of his birth and the most complete anthology of this painter held to date. His works are currently preserved in the collections of the Caja Rural de Burgos and the Vela Zanetti Foundation in León, as well as murals in various cities in Spain, Santo Domingo, the United States, Colombia and Switzerland.