Angel Zarraga
The Boyfriend , 1926
Drawing in blue ink on paper
Signed and dated by the hand of the artist
Dimensions with frame: 49 x 48 cm
Price: 2900 euro
Ángel Zárraga comes from a wealthy family of the Mexican bourgeoisie. He trained at the Beaux-Arts in Mexico City before going to Brussels, Madrid, Toledo and Florence. He moved to Paris in 1904 and made his debut at the Salon d’Automne in 1911. The painter is interested in the formal contribution of cubism. Fine portraitist, he represents his wife, and painters, including Pierre Bonnard (Centre Pompidou).
His design is close to the lesson of Symbolism and Art Deco. He depicts landscapes and bathing scenes, female nudes. Anxious to break away from avant-garde movements, he did not join any current of thought from the beginning of the century. Zárraga produces many frescoes for the residences of notables. The Mexican Embassy in Paris commissioned a cycle of frescoes from him, which would constitute his great work. It allegorically represents the history of Mexico, its friendship for France and its dream of universal brotherhood.
From Mexico, Zarraga retains a sensitivity to the mystical, present in Mexican folklore. The painter is in Paris at the time of the Mexican Revolution; he will only know the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, emblem of all freedoms. “La Garçonne” illustrates the Paris of that time. The women cut their hair and shortened their dresses while the painters adorned and colored them with the decorative style.
Bibliography:
• “Ángel Zárraga”, Oxford Art Online.
Museum :
• In Paris, Center Pompidou
• Last exhibition: “Ángel Zárraga” Mexico City (Mexico), Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, from May 1, 2014 to July 27, 2014.
