Federico Beltran Masses
| Federico Beltran Masses | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 29, 1885 Guaira de la Melena, Cuba |
| Died | September 4, 1949 (aged 64) Barcelona, Spain |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Education | Studied under Joaquín Sorolla, Madrid, Spain |
| Known for | Painting |
| Spouse(s) | Irene Narezo Dragoné () |
Federico Beltran Masses (September 8, 1885 - October 4, 1949) was a Spanish painter born in Cuba; the only child of Luis Beltran Fernandez Estepona, a former Spanish army officer stationed in Cuba, and Dona Mercedes Masses Olives, the daughter of a doctor from Lleida, Catalonia, who himself had married the daughter of a wealthy Spanish Cuban-landowner. He spent his youth in Barcelona, where he began his artistic training in the well-regarded Escola de la Llotja. He later moved to Madrid, where he received more training under Joaquín Sorolla. He married Irene Narezo Dragoné, a painter as well, of a distinguished family and good economic position. They moved to Paris in 1916 to further Masses' career and settled there until 1946, after which he moved to Barcelona in 1946 and later died in 1949.
Beltran Masses was renowned as a master of colour and the psychological portrait, as well as a painter of seductive images of women. Born in Cuba, where his mother’s family had lived for nearly two centuries, his family returned to Spain to live in Barcelona, when he was seven years old - the painter’s Spanish heritage would influence his oeuvre deeply while he sometimes referenced the tropical exoticism of Cuba in the settings for some of his subjects. His paintings are rich with musical and poetic references influenced by ‘Greek mythology, orphic mysteries and fantasies of Asia, where we are led by Gustave Moreau’ remarked Louis Vauxcelles.
A guitar featured recurrently in many of his subject paintings, while his interest in contemporary dance led to his design of the scenery and gypsy costume for a 1929 performance by then celebrated dancer Antonia Mercé “La Argentina” (whose portrait he painted).
An early fascination with Symbolism and ‘the Ancients’ manifest in paintings such as Lackmy and Canción de Bilitis, while his dark paintings of eroticised women, languorously posed in fantastical nocturnal settings set him apart from contemporary artistic trends. His 1915 portrait of a Spanish countess, naked but for a white mantilla, seated between two fully clothed companions (La Maja Marquesa), was publicly denounced and had to be retitled. This decided Beltrán’s move to Paris, where he spent most of the next thirty years. Before his departure a solo exhibition of his work in Madrid in 1916 received the accolade of a visit from the Spanish King, Alfonso XIII; this was followed by further successes at the XII Venice Biennale of 1920, where an entire pavilion was dedicated to his work, and several large-scale exhibitions in Paris, New York, Palm Beach and London received enthusiastic reviews.
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