The Dance (El Baile), 1932, Santos Balmori. A Cubist work from the Paris years.

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Santos Balmori Picazo
The Dance (El Baile), 1932, Santos Balmori. A Cubist work from the Paris years.
1932

About the Item

José-Santos Balmori-Picazo 1898 -1992 Spanish Mexican School The Dance (El Baile), 1932 Graphite and Ink wash. 50x65cm. Signed lower left : S Balmori Provenance: Private collection, Paris. Born in Mexico City, Santos Balmori pursued studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in his native city, later at the Carrera des Artes Plasticas, Madrid, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris. He was a pupil of Joaquin Sorolla, Salvador Dali an Remedios Varo, and in Paris, the sculptor, Antoine Bourdelle. Balmori lived in Paris for fourteen years, from the 1920s to the mid-1930s. There, he met Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck, Tsuguharu Foujita, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, and he executed a portrait of Gandhi, for which the great man sat. He collaborated with Henri Barbusse on the weekly Monde, illustrating texts by writers such as Miguel de Unamuno, Maxim Gorki, Albert Einstein and Upton Sinclair. He designed textiles, flyers and created anti-fascist engravings, paintings and posters, which earned him international awards. However, his activism and his collaboration with Federico García Lorca, Unamuno and León Felipe got him into trouble with the Spanish government. Balmori exhibited widely, and his Parisian exhibits were followed by shows in Brussels; at the Museum of Modern Art, Madrid; and in 1935, at the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City. A winner of several important international prizes and an important teacher and author, Balmori enunciated his artistic credo with clarity: "Everything which surrounds us, each object which possesses an expression of life, manifests its own particular rhythm. Before the great explosion at the origin of time, when everything was an accumulation of material, associations were formed at the atomic level. Rhythm is a continuous flow and if one attempts to stop it, death ensues. I am reminded of the Syrian desert, where everything appears to be suspended: time silence and movement…" In his composition, "The Dance", Balmori demonstrates his mastery of line and rhythm. A playful, alternation between positive and negative animates his energetic tribute to the dance, an art form that Balmori considered to be "the most poetic form of movement." The artist had a passionate involvement with the discipline over the course of his career. He married on three occasions, each time to dancers. His first wife, the French dancer, Therese Bernard, died shortly after the wedding from Addison's disease. His second wife was Rachel Björnstrom, with whom he had a daughter, Kore Monica. His last marriage, to Helena Jordán Juárez, lasted over forty years until his death. Balmori was the head of the Academia de la Danza Mexicana with Miguel Covarrubias, and in the 1950s, he actively promoted new dance movements in Mexico, including the production of posters, set designs and costumes. His drawings include those of dancers such as Raquel Gutierrez, Rosa Reina and his wife Helena, as well as sketches for the Ballet Antigona, which was headed by José Limón. When Balmori was ninety, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City held a major retrospective for him in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias in Oviedo, Spain. Other retrospectives of his work have been held after his death, such as the 1996 event at the Casa Lamm Cultural Center in Mexico City and the Mexican Cultural Center in Paris in 1998.

Creator:
Santos Balmori Picazo (1899 - 1992)
Creation Year:
1932
Dimensions:
Height: 19.69 in (50 cm)Width: 25.6 in (65 cm)
Medium:
Charcoal,Graphite
Period:
Mid-20th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Paris, FR
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU135125950142