Rafael Barradas (1890-1929) - Basque Sailor In St Jean De Luz - Watercolor

Rafael Pérez Barradas (1890-1929)

Basque sailor in St Jean de Luz (c. 1925-26)
Watercolor and charcoal signed lower right
39.5 x 30 cm at sight
55 x 44 cm with the frame

Uruguayan self-taught painter and draftsman born in Montevideo. Despite his short life of 39 years, he produced works that ranked him among the most important of his generation, particularly in Spain where he revolutionized painting and influenced the main artistic currents of the time, notably through his presence within the generation of 27. This drawing is part of a period when he won, in 1925, the Grand Prix of Iberian artists at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. Late that year and early in 1926 he traveled to Saint-Jean-de-Luz where he spent a season producing a series of drawings and watercolors of the port and its figures.