Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta

Biography of Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta ( 1841-1920 )

Born in Rome in 1841, Raimundo Madrazzo is the son of Frederico de Madrazo y Küntz,   famous portrait painter at the Spanish Court, Director of the National Museum in Madrid and Director of the Academia Real of San Fernando in Madrid.

Because of his ability,  training with his father in the Real Academia de San Fernando  and later with Léon Cogniet in the Fine-Arts Academy  in Paris, he seemed destined to continue the family tradition of religious and portrait academic painting.(e.g. Arrival in Spain of the Body of the Apostle St James, 1858, and Ataulfo, 1860).

However, due to the influence of the Belgian  artist Alfred Stevens, of his brother-in-law, the painter Mariano  Fortuny, and the Parisian environment, he soon exchanged dry historical painting for the preciousness of the small, intimate genre painting.
He lived in Paris and New York and became so remote from Spanish artistic life that he and Fortuny were the only Spanish artists not to participate in any national exhibition.

In 1882, with Giuseppe De Nittis, Alfred Stevens and the French gallery owner Georges Petit, he co-founded the Exposition Internationale de Peinture, designed to promote foreign artists in Paris.
He exhibited regularly at the Salon and was awarded a First Class medal in 1878 and a Gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in 1889. In 1878, he was knighted Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and  Officer in 1889.

Madrazo Garreta’s most characteristic works are the female portrait and the witty and elegant genre painting, with soft, delicate tones, often of rose and grey,  and suggestive poses. The influence of the Rococo and of Japanese art is reflected in his painting, which expresses an exquisite aristocratic or bourgeois ideal, the illusion of a refined, sensual and superficial life.

With their technical mastery and chromatic delicacy, his paintings were highly sought-after by American collectors, and many are now in important private collections or museums in the United States. Many are also in the Prado Museum in Madrid.