Hotel Laundry Bag
1970s American Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor
1930s Surrealist Figurative Paintings
Panel, Oil
Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1940s Modern Abstract Paintings
Masonite, Oil, Tempera
1960s Surrealist Interior Paintings
Watercolor, Tempera, Paper
1940s American Modern Abstract Paintings
Masonite, Oil, Tempera
1940s American Modern Abstract Paintings
Masonite, Oil, Tempera
1940s American Modern Abstract Paintings
Masonite, Oil, Tempera
People Also Browsed
20th Century Paintings
Canvas, Wood
21st Century and Contemporary Minimalist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Linen
1940s Folk Art Portrait Prints
Screen
1990s Realist Landscape Paintings
Oil, Canvas
1940s Art Deco Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Watercolor, Pencil
Vintage 1940s Spanish Moorish Jewelry Boxes
Fruitwood
1960s Modern Abstract Prints
Lithograph
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Jewelry Boxes
Wood
19th Century Victorian Animal Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Antique 19th Century American Paintings
Paper
1970s Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Pencil
20th Century American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
Board, Oil
2010s Contemporary Nude Prints
Digital
Early 2000s American Expressionist Paintings
Canvas
2010s American Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Pen
Recent Sales
1940s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Masonite, Oil
Vintage 1930s American Trunks and Luggage
Brass
1930s Surrealist Interior Paintings
Oil, Masonite
Vintage 1970s American Paintings
Julio de Diego for sale on 1stDibs
Julio De Diego was one of the most colorful artists to work in Chicago. Born in Madrid in 1900, he left home at the age of 15 to apprentice as a scene painter for theatres. After service in the Spanish army, including six months fighting in North Africa, Diego traveled to Paris and Rome to study art. He also appeared as an extra in Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. He emigrated to the United States in 1924. He lived in New York for two years, then went to Chicago, where he remained until 1942. At first, he earned a living as a magazine illustrator, decorative painter and graphic designer. By the early 1930s, Diego began to show regularly at the Art Institute of Chicago, appearing at thirty-two annual exhibitions of Chicago Artists, American artists and watercolorists, between 1931–47. He was employed by the easel division of the Illinois Art Project during the mid-1930s. He traveled to Mexico for the first time in 1939, becoming close friends with Carlos Mérida. Diego was deeply affected by the Spanish Civil War, and many of his works reflect the conflict that presaged the Second World War. Meditation over Inexplicable Logic seems to be a kind of preparation for his self-portrait in the Art Institute’s collection, titled The Perplexity of What To Do (1940). Both feature isolated, brooding figures lost in their inability to respond to events. He left Chicago in 1942 but continued to exhibit his work at major institutions. In 1946, Life magazine’s article described him spending time “cooking aromatic Spanish dishes and reading works of Spanish mystical philosophers and poets. He smokes cigarettes incessantly and dresses flamboyantly, affecting cerise mufflers and jangling bracelets.” Diego gained more notoriety in 1948 when he married the great burlesque artist, Gypsy Rose Lee. After their separation and divorce in the mid-1950s, he lived for a time in New York at the Chelsea Hotel, a haunt of artists, musicians and poets. Diego settled in Sarasota, Florida in 1967, near former friends from Chicago, where he died in 1979. Daniel Schulman References “Julio De Diego: He Paints Weird War and Peace.” Life Magazine, March 11, 1946. De Diego, Julio. Pamphlet File P-07866. Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago.