The BBVA Collection is contributing to this project with the loan of Procession in Malpica (La Coruña), a painting by Álvarez de Sotomayor, rightly considered to be one of the most prominent figures in academic art circles in Spain during the first half of the 20th century.
Curated by Javier Barón, Senior Curator of Nineteenth-century Painting at the Prado Museum, this monographic exhibition marks the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth and presents the general public with a carefully curated selection of works that demonstrate his skill in fusing classical realism with the French Romantic influence that prevailed at the time.
Procession in Malpica (La Coruña) is an outstanding example of the works with themes from Galicia which Sotomayor explored following his return from Chile in 1918. In them, he combined a taste for balanced composition and harmonious colouring with the portrayal of local people and landscapes. Painted in the 1940s, the scene depicts the procession of Our Lady of Carmen in Malpica, and is a larger version of another work with a similar composition. Particularly worth underscoring is the interplay of the dark tones of the fishermen’s clothes with the blue, white and pink tones of the sea, as well as with the green and orange hues of the background landscape, lending the composition exceptional luminosity and vibrancy.