20th Century Spanish

Álvaro Delgado was born in Madrid, between the neighbourhoods of Antón Martín and Lavapiés. Although in the Civil War he pursued business studies, he ended up enrolling at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid and attended classes given by the painter Daniel Vázquez Díaz (1882—1969), where he met Cirilo Martínez Novillo (1921—2008) and Luis García Ochoa (1920). In 1939 he joined the

 Second

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

 

(1939-1942) the sequel to the first

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

, founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez and disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War. After the war, the art group was reborn as the so-called Second

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

. This second version was promoted, once again, by Palencia, but this time in the company of Francisco San José and a group of students from the San Fernando School of Fine Arts. The group contained most of the artists that would later make up the

 School of Madrid 

or Young School of Madrid, is a term coined by the art dealer and bookseller Karl Buchholz and the art critic Manuel Sánchez Camargo to name the group of Spanish painters—many of them from the Second

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

—who took part in the group exhibition held in 1945 at Galería Buchholz in Madrid. This group has sometimes been considered a mere commercial project driven by art critics and gallery owners with a view to creating a market for landscape painting.

. The Prado museum was the meeting point for these artists and El Greco their major influence. Landscape continued being the motif par excellence, although executed in more realistic tones, far from the experimentation of the initial period—ultimately, a more restrained landscape offering a refuge from the horrors of war.

, from which he would eventually detach himself due to discrepancies with Benjamín Palencia, and finally joined the

 School of Madrid 

or Young School of Madrid, is a term coined by the art dealer and bookseller Karl Buchholz and the art critic Manuel Sánchez Camargo to name the group of Spanish painters—many of them from the Second

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

—who took part in the group exhibition held in 1945 at Galería Buchholz in Madrid. This group has sometimes been considered a mere commercial project driven by art critics and gallery owners with a view to creating a market for landscape painting.

.

In 1949, the Institut Français gave him a scholarship to travel to Paris, where he developed the expressionistic basis of his work which, in spite of always remaining loyal to a subject matter predicated on the figure, the landscape, the still life and the portrait, was influenced by a realist approach connected to Spanish traditional painting yet seen through a personal cubist optic indebted to the influence of his master, Daniel Vázquez Díaz.

In the early 1960s he began a process of decomposition of form that led to the distortion and disintegration of the image in search of greater expressiveness. Now, landscape ceded territory to the human figure as his primary subject matter. For him landscape became more of a backdrop for man, the milieu where he develops his life. It is largely based on his own experiences in Navia (Asturias) and Olmeda (Madrid), places to which Delgado devotes a number of existentialist landscapes permeated by his subjective vision.

Álvaro Delgado’s career has been distinguished with several awards, including a Medal for Merit in Fine Arts granted by the Madrid City Council in 1991 and a Gold Medal also from the Madrid City Council in 1995. He was selected by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs within its 2003 program to promote Spanish art abroad, and in 2009 he was given an homage for his academic seniority at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts.