"Lady in Mantillia" Unsigned Tobin Collection. Exibited in recent Museum shows
By Jose Arpa
Located in San Antonio, TX
Jose Arpa (1858-1952) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 25 x 20 Frame Size: 29 x 24 Medium: Oil "Lady in Mantilla" From the Robert Tobin Collection. Robert Tobin (deceased) San Antonio, Texas Developer and Philanthropist.
Details
This painting was exhibited in 2016-2017 at Several Texas Museums including the Panhandle Plains Museum. Exhibition tag on verso. Biography
Jose Arpa (1858-1952)
Born in Carmona, Spain, José Arpa y Perea was known as "The Colorist Painter" of figures and landscapes, especially in Texas where he brought a fresh approach to San Antonio painting in his bright, sunlit local scenes. He was also an etcher, illustrator, and muralist as well as an art teacher, and he started and ended his career in Spain. His subjects include the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
He began his art study as the pupil of Eduardo Cano de la Pena at the Academy of Fine Arts in Seville and then spent six years in Rome followed by extensive travel through Africa and Europe. His reputation was solid enough that the Spanish government sent four of his paintings as part of the exhibition to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
In 1894, as an illustrator, he accompanied a Spanish army expedition to Morocco where the Spanish had been defeated by Rifi tribesmen. In the mid-1890s, he was brought to Mexico City, reportedly by a special Mexican naval vessel, to head the Academy of Fine Arts, but declined the position once he understood the responsibilities. Instead he joined one of his Spanish schoolmates and went to his home in Puebla, Mexico, where his use of bright colors earned him the name of "Sunshine Man." He became close to the children of this man, and in 1903, accompanied them as a guardian to school in San Antonio.
After twenty years of traveling in Spain, Mexico, the Southwest, and South America, Arpa settled in 1923 in San Antonio, Texas, where he became Director of the San Antonio Art School and painted bright, sun-filled landscapes. He taught landscape and portrait painting and was exceedingly prolific, and several San Antonio collectors accumulated large numbers of his works. Among his close artist friends were Robert and Julian Onderdonk, Tom and Joe Brown, and Charles Simmang. They were members of a San Antonio group who painted together and called themselves the "Brass Mug...
Category
1880s Realist Alfred Kingsley Lawrence Art
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