Julia Minguillón

JULIA MINGUILLÓN IGLESIAS (Lugo, 1907 - Madrid, 1965).
Untitled.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the left inferior zone.
Measurements: 51 x 41 cm.
This portrait, probably conceived as a psychological study rather than as an official commission, is part of his constant interest in the human figure, especially female, treated not as an idealized symbol but as a concrete, silent and reflective presence. In contrast to his better known compositions of a social or rural nature, the work reveals a turn towards the introspective. The construction of the face, with its soft modeling and delicate tonal transitions, reveals Minguillón's attention to the psychological dimension of the portrait. The frontality of the figure and the gestural economy eliminate any narrative anecdote, concentrating the meaning in the gaze and in the very presence of the subject.
Julia Minguillón began her artistic training at the age of eleven, under the guidance of the painter Castro Cires in Valladolid. She would later complete her studies in Madrid, first at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios and later at the Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, finally graduating in 1932 as a professor of drawing and painting. During these years of apprenticeship she had as teachers Manuel Benedito, Cecilio Pla, Joaquín Valverde, Ignacio Pinazo and Eduardo Chicharro. Minguillón developed a personal style halfway between postmodernism and naturalism, and painted both landscapes and genre scenes, the latter brimming with a naive lyricism and full of sensitivity, which will mark the subsequent Galician painting. He became known through the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, and in 1941 he won a gold medal for "Escuela de Doloriñas" (Museo del Prado, on deposit at the Provincial de Lugo). It is a work that perfectly exemplifies Minguillón's style, which, according to M.V. Carballo-Calero, is characterized by a tendency to primitivism, which generally leads him to paint on board instead of on canvas, and by a schematism with post-cubist touches in its composition. This painter also took part in the most important international competitions, as well as in several group exhibitions. In 1948 she won the Grand Prize of Fine Arts, and a year later she moved to Galicia, where she was appointed corresponding academic of the Royal Galician Academy. After a trip to America, in 1961 she settled permanently in Madrid, where she died four years later. Currently she is mainly represented in the Provincial Museum of Lugo, although her works are also part of other collections such as the Nova Caixa Galicia, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid and numerous museums in Galicia, the rest of Spain and abroad.