Sold at Auction: Santiago Rusiñol Prats

(b. 1861, Barcelona, Spain; d. 1931, Aranjuez, Spain) Spanish painter. Born into a family working in the textile industry, Rusinol chose not to take over the family business, but instead decided to become an artist. He attended the Gervex Academy in Paris where he studied under Puvis de Chavannes and Eugene Carriere. During his time in Paris, Rusinol exhibited at the Paris Salon. The charismatic leader of Catalan Modernism, and a founder of Els Quatre Gats in Barcelona, Rusinol traveled widely and continued to stay often in Paris. It was in here that Rusiñol came into contact with Edgar Degas and James Abbot McNeil Whistler, whose work had a particular influence on his own. Notwithstanding his position as a leading member of the international avant-garde, however, it was in Spain, away from the clamor of the Parisian metropolis, that he was able to explore the full range of his resonant palette and where many of his most powerful and evocative works were completed. It was in 1895, during a visit to Granada, that Rusiñol first discovered the beauty of landscape gardens, which henceforth became central to his oeuvre. Rusinol was also a writer, collector and playwright.
Credit: Sotheby’s, London, November 18, 2003- 19th Century European Paintings including Spanish Paintings 1850-1930. Lot 230