Landscape. Oil On Canvas. Frau, José (spain, 1898-1976).

Landscape. Oil on canvas. FRAU, José (Spain, 1898-1976).
Signed (lower right).
José María Isidro Frau y Ruiz (Vigo, May 15, 1898 - Madrid, March 24, 1976) was a Spanish painter and academic, appreciated for his landscapes and for having been part of the Paular School of Painters (created by royal decree on February 22, 1918, within the chair of landscape that the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando had established in 1845 as part of the official teaching of its educational programs in art; it ceased to function in 1936 and was recovered in 2018). Known as José Frau, he began his pictorial training in Huelva with Antonio de la Torre and Eugenio Hermoso Huelva. In 1916 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and, from 1917, he participated in the national exhibitions of Madrid, also exhibiting his works in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Mexico City, New York, etc. He traveled to South America in 1947, settled in Mexico three years later and returned to Spain in 1966. His work is preserved in important private collections and institutions such as the Museo Municipal Quiñones de León (Spain), the Museo de Bellas Artes de La Coruña, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain), the Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, etc. He is considered one of the representatives of the equivalent of "magical realism" in Spain. His pictorial work is based on figurative premises and a naturalistic and symbolic training. He participated in the process of renewal of Spanish painting in the 20s and 30s, evolving towards a post-impressionist style. Later, he focused on a calm post-Cézanne modernity in which he depicted landscapes with characters recreated in fantastic and magical environments. In the post-war years, he returned to a looser and more nervous brushstroke. In his last works, he used a Fauvist chromatic palette in which greens, blues, earth tones and highly contrasting blacks predominate, while, at the same time, a progressive process of stylization occurs in his works, in addition to the loss of the importance of the human figure.
- Dimensions: 91x3x71 cms. int: 79x59 cms