José Segura Ezquerro

JOSÉ SEGURA EZQUERRO (Almería, 1897 – Havana, 1963).
Untitled.
Oil on canvas.
The painting’s surface shows slight imperfections.
Signed in the lower right corner. Signed and dated in Havana.
Measurements: 93.5 x 70 cm; 102 x 78 cm (frame).
In this work, José Segura Ezquerro demonstrates his extraordinary skill as a portraitist and his interest in depicting ordinary people from a dignified and deeply human perspective. The work focuses all attention on the female figure, whose presence is emphasized through a modeling of forms that highlights the intensity of her expression. The rich use of color, characteristic of the artist, and the delicate rendering of skin and fabrics reveal a painting firmly rooted in the realist tradition, where color plays an essential role in creating the atmosphere.
José Segura Ezquerro was born into a family with ties to the world of culture. From a very young age, he showed a clear artistic calling and began his training at the School of Arts and Crafts in Almería, where he completed his art studies in 1912 as a student of the Sevillian painter Joaquín Acosta. He later moved to Madrid, where he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, earning the title of professor of drawing in 1917 and gaining exposure to academic instruction under the guidance of the renowned Cordoban painter Julio Romero de Torres. His artistic curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons led him to travel throughout Europe. In Bordeaux, he studied with the artist Leo Bertín and worked as an illustrator, while during the final years of World War I he lived in Paris and Reims, collaborating with the Allies by creating military maps. In 1921, he traveled to Cuba, where he came into contact with young Cuban avant-garde artists, becoming part of the island’s innovative art circles and participating in the development of a new pictorial sensibility. He taught at the Cuban Academy of Drawing. He returned to Spain in 1931, drawn by the cultural and political atmosphere of the Second Republic, and during this period he held several exhibitions in Madrid that strengthened his connection to the Spanish artistic tradition. However, in 1939 he returned permanently to Cuba, where he would spend the rest of his creative career. Settling in Havana, his painting evolved into a balance between the academic heritage he had acquired in Spain and the influences of the avant-garde movements he had encountered throughout his life.