Carlos Maside

CARLOS MASIDE GARCÍA (San Xulián, Pontecesures, 1897–1958).
“Portrait.”
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 38.5 x 27 cm; 44.5 x 33 cm (frame).

He began his studies in drawing in the town of Padrón. In 1917, he traveled to Madrid to fulfill his military service, and there he came into contact with artists who would guide his future career. In 1923, he participated in the Regional Exhibition of A Coruña. Two years later, he contributed to the newspapers *Faro de Vigo* and *El Pueblo Gallego* (the latter of which is now defunct). The Provincial Council of Pontevedra awarded him a scholarship in late 1926 to travel to Paris, where he stayed for some time and became acquainted with the interwar artistic avant-garde movements. Upon his return to Spain during the Republican era, he lived for periods in Madrid and Galicia—specifically in Compostela and Vigo—where he undertook industrial commissions and became involved in intellectual salons led by Valle Inclán and García Lorca. He held his first solo exhibition in Santiago de Compostela in 1930. He later held exhibitions in Vigo and other cities in Galicia. The Civil War was a difficult time for Maside, who was associated with Republican groups. After the war ended, he settled in Santiago de Compostela, where he would remain until his death, surrounded by young intellectuals, over whom this intellectual, theoretical painter exerted a clear influence. Carlos Maside’s work can be found in all of Galicia’s museums, particularly in the Vigo Museum, which houses an extensive and highly representative collection of his oil paintings and gouaches. The museum founded in Sada by Luis Seoane and Díaz Pardo bears his name, a recognition of the influence that the artist from Cesura had on the new artistic movements in Galicia, which until then had been practically stuck in figurative art and folklorism. Maside is not a great painter, because he was not particularly gifted technically. He is, however, a great draftsman, and his serious, conscientious artistic vocation leads him to create—more through reason than inspiration—paintings with a vague Cubist or Expressionist influence, as he was influenced by German interwar styles, and one need only mention the leading figures of the groups “El Puente” or “El Caballo Azul.” Franz Marc, for example, is very evident in his work. Drawing on the prevailing folklorism, Maside lends artistic depth to anecdotal subjects, striving for a structured, baroque, and at the same time geometric composition of unmistakable personality. He repeats scenes of the marketplace, sewing, or domestic chores with minimal variations, arranging the elements skillfully and using a warm palette dominated by reds, blues, and yellows. At times, he reduces the figures to silhouettes so that the material can be reimagined and rendered in impasto, applied directly with the brush over a concise and confident drawing. He was an excellent printmaker skilled in various techniques, for, ultimately, no form of artistic expression—not even caricature or the “caption” joke—was foreign to him.