Ignacio Zuloaga

Ignacio Zuloaga (July 26, 1870 - October 31, 1945) was a Spanish painter, was born at Eibar, in the Basque country, the son of the metalworker and damascener Plácido Zuloaga, and grandson of the organizer and director of the royal armoury in Madrid.

The career chosen for him by his father was that of an architect, and with this object in view he was sent to Rome, where he immediately followed the strong impulse that led him to painting. After only six months' work he completed his first picture, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1890. Continuing his studies in Paris, where he lived for five years, he was strongly influenced by Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Only on his return to his native soil he found his true style, which is based en the national Spanish tradition embodied in the work of Diego Velasquez, Francisco de Zurbaran, El Greco, and Francisco Goya.

His own country was slow in acknowledging the young artist whose strong, decorative, rugged style was the very negation of the aims of such well-known modern Spanish artists as Fortuny, Madrazo, and Benlliure. It was first in Paris, and then in Brussels and other continental art centres, that Zuloaga was hailed by the reformers as the regenerator of Spanish national art and as the leader of a school. He is now represented in almost every great continental gallery.

Two of his canvases are at the Luxembourg, one at the Brussels Museum (Avant la Corrida), and one (The Poet Don Miguel) at the Vienna Gallery. The Pau Museum owns an interesting portrait of a lady, the Barcelona Municipal Museum the important group Amies, the Venice Gallery, Madame Louise; the Berlin Gallery, The Topers. Other examples are in the Budapest, Stuttgart, Ghent, Posen, and New York City galleries and in many important private collections.

Ignacio Zuloaga's work is known for his depictions of traditional Spanish characters, including peasants, gypsies, and bullfighters.

Modified after a now public domain entry in an encyclopedia from 1911