Daniel Vázquez Díaz

DANIEL VÁZQUEZ DÍAZ (Nerva, Huelva, 1882 – Madrid, 1969).
“Landscape.”
Oil on cardboard.
Signed in the lower left margin.
Measurements: 24 x 21 cm; 43 x 40 cm (frame).

Daniel Vázquez Díaz began painting during his student years, after discovering the work of Zurbarán and El Greco. In 1903, he moved to Madrid to focus on painting and copy the masters at the Prado, and there he befriended Juan Gris, Solana, and Darío de Regoyos. Three years later, he settled in Paris, where he worked alongside the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and met Picasso, Braque, Modigliani, and Max Jacob, among others, and absorbed a certain avant-garde spirit. Upon his return to Spain in 1918, he began teaching, first in his studio and later at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, where he was appointed professor of mural painting in 1932. Through his classes, Vázquez Díaz promoted a form of Cubism characterized by architectural monumentality, which served as a bridge for young artists to the trends developing in the rest of Europe. In addition to being an excellent landscape painter, Vázquez Díaz distinguished himself as an illustrator and portraitist of some of the most prominent figures of his time. Among his mural works, those created for the Monastery of La Rábida in Huelva between 1927 and 1930 are particularly noteworthy, as they established his reputation as a painter. In 1968, a year before his death, he was named a member of the San Fernando Academy. His works are currently on display at the Reina Sofía National Museum, the museum bearing his name in Nerva, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Telefónica Foundation, and the Fine Arts Museums of Bilbao and Seville, among others.