The most famous Spanish painters in history and their most important works –

The history of art in Spain is undoubtedly rich and varied. Our country has generated a large number of artists and if we have to focus on painters, the truth is that it is difficult to choose just one or highlight a few as the “best”. In any case, we at Sobrehistoria have tried to make a compilation of those who are the most famous Spanish painters in history and their most important works.

John Gray

He was a painter born in Madrid who developed his work at the beginning of the 20th century in Paris, where he was considered one of the great masters of the cubism.

Since he began to opt for cubist-style painting in 1910, Juan Gris always showed a great spirit of innovation and a very radical style. His main contribution to his style was the paper collewhich consists of adding clippings from magazines or newspapers to the work.

Among some of his most outstanding works we can mention the ‘Portrait of Picasso’, ‘Still life with blinds’ and ‘Guitarra y Pipa’.

Antoni Tapies

Tapies is a Catalan painter and sculptor who died barely three years ago. Throughout his life, Tapies has been characterized by his personal style, always in line with the abstract expressionism which flourished after the 2nd World War. In addition to being a versatile artist and art theorist, he was a staunch defender of Catalan culture.

Some of his most emblematic paintings are ‘Great Gray Painting’, ‘White with a reddish sign’ or ‘Red Grattage’, from 2008.

Julio Romero Torres

We are advancing in our list and therefore (in our opinion) raising the level and the repercussion of the painters.

Julio Romero de Torres (1874-1930) is another of the most representative Spanish painters of early 20th century. He stands out for the symbolism of his landscapes, the softness of the light and a strange ability to create an attractive artifice in the settings.

His death caused great commotion in his native Córdoba. Most of his work can be seen in the Julio Romero de Torres Museum in Cordoba.

Some of his most famous paintings are ‘La chiquita piconera’, ‘El altarpiece del amor’, ‘Oranges and lemons’ or ‘Mystic love and profane love’.

Jose de Ribera

José de Ribera (1591-1652) was a Spanish painter who developed much of his work in Italy. There he knew great fame thanks to his mastery of the style naturalist.

Physically characterized by his short stature, in Italy he was known as «the spanish«. Although he developed his life in Italy, he never forgot his Spanish roots and, in fact, he signed many of his paintings as “Jusepe de Ribera, Spanish”.

Among his most outstanding works we can mention ‘The Immaculate Conception’, ‘Silenus drunk’, ‘San Andrés’ or ‘San Pedro’.

Federico Madrazo

He was a Spanish painter of the 19th century. He was born and died in Madrid and achieved great popularity, being one of the main exponents of the romanticism and becoming the court painter to Elizabeth II.

Federico Madrazo stood out in the field of Pictures, where he is considered one of the great masters of the country’s history. He his specialized above all in portraits to high society and the monarchy.

Among his most famous works we can count ‘Portrait of Isabel II’ or ‘Doña Amalia de Llano y Dotres, Countess of Vilches’.

Joaquin Sorolla

Sorolla, one of the most prolific painters, with more than 2,200 cataloged works, was born in 1863 and from a very young age discovered his true vocation for painting. He stands out for a mature style that characterizes him as a luminist, although with little success he has always been described as an impressionist.

His most representative works are painted in the open air, and he masterfully dominates the light for paintings in which he represents daily scenes and landscapes of Mediterranean life. He also cultivated the painting of social denunciation that brought him many successes.

International fame came to him after holding an exhibition in Paris with more than half a thousand works, making his pictorial work known throughout Europe and America. He exhibited his work in New York in 1909 and achieved unprecedented success. He signed a commission for the Hispanic Society of America making fourteen murals that would decorate the halls of the institution: they are known as Vision of Spain, and in which characteristic scenes of various Spanish and Portuguese provinces were represented. Another important facet of his was that of a portraitist, of important figures such as Juan Ramón Jiménez, King Alfonso XIII, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and Ortega y Gasset, among others.

Among his most famous works, Nude of a woman from 1902, painted during its culmination stage or Paseo por la Playa from 1909.

Bartolome Esteban Murillo

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was born in Seville in 1617 and represents one of the most important painters of Spanish Baroque painting who, after falling in esteem at the beginning of the 20th century, once again enjoys important world recognition. The baroque style of it is so detailed that we can even say that it advances the rococo.

In 1630 he was already working as an independent painter in Seville and in 1645 he received his first important commission, a series of canvases destined for the cloister of San Francisco el Grande; the series consists of thirteen paintings, including The kitchen of angelsthe most celebrated work of the group for the thoroughness and realism with which everyday objects are treated.

Anthony Lopez

A more recent painter in our history, who also stands out for his work as a sculptor. He was born in 1936 and is currently the living artist with the greatest international projection. He had an early vocation for drawing that caused him to end up dedicating himself to painting. He travels to Italy, where he knew Italian Renaissance painting first-hand, identifying himself in the hyper-realistic style, and in temporality and the deterioration of the material. He is a member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando and in 1985 he was awarded the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. His work was adapted to the cinema by the film director Víctor Erice in the film entitled “El sol del membrillo”.

Among his best known works are the sculptures Antonio and Mari, 1967-1968 or the painting Gran Vía, 1974-1981.

El Greco

El Greco is a painter born in 1541 with a technique that later influenced the Impressionist painters. He starts his career in Venice then goes to Rome and finally moves to Toledo. In his diverse pictorial work we find many religious works, portraits of noblemen and scenes from Toledo. The Burial of the Count of Orgaz is one of his best-known paintings.

His style evolves until he achieves a very personal one characterized by his extraordinarily elongated mannerist figures with their own lighting, thin, ghostly, very expressive, in indefinite environments and a range of colors looking for contrasts. Another of his most famous works is The healing of the blind man (1567), The purification of the temple, or The knight with the hand on his chest (1580).

Francisco de Zurbaran

Painter who was born in 1598, and who became very popular in the Baroque and Counter-Reformation eras, with his religious paintings and scenes of monastic life. With a style that he maintained for decades, he was characterized as a tenebrist painter, due to the use he made of the contrasts of light and shadows.

His work is full of simple, realistic, detailed brushstrokes, with broad shapes and full volumes, influenced by Caravaggio, José Ribera and Diego Velázquez and at the end of his career, by Murillo’s more subtle style.

Among his best known works we have Saint Francis kneeling with a skull in his hands, 1658 or Saint Hugo in the refectory of the Carthusians, 1630-1635

Joan Miro

Born in 1893, he is one of the painters with a more varied work and standing out in various styles such as surrealism, fauvism or expressionism. An artist to the core, Miró was capable of going days without eating in order to achieve an altered state of mind that could express what he wanted to portray in his paintings.

His stay in Paris causes his work to become more dreamlike, later moving on to a somewhat more naive style. In addition to being a painter, he was also a Spanish sculptor, engraver and potter, and is considered one of the greatest exponents of the art of his generation. One of his great projects was the creation of the Joan Miró Foundation, located in Barcelona, ​​a cultural and artistic center for disseminating new trends in contemporary art; Among his best-known works we have Signs and constellations in love with a woman (1941), or Metamorphosis (1936).

Diego Velazquez

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was born in 1599 and is considered the most famous painter of the Spanish Golden Age, as well as being one of the masters of the Baroque and of universal painting, influencing the realist painters of later generations. He considered one of the best portraitists in the history of art.

Among his most famous works we have Las Meninas (1656) and The Surrender of Breda (1635)

Without a doubt, his works were the most enigmatic and with touches of arrogance that filled his paintings with darkness. Not because of darkness, but because his colors were very dark. Despite this, his fame was not because of the darkness, but because of his talent when it came to creating. Due to this, he was ordered as the “painter of the king”, so that he was housed in the royal facilities, with exclusive treatment, where he worked almost all his life for him.

From his rooms, the portraits that made him famous began to emerge and on his trips to Italy, he managed to impregnate his art with venetian influences.

This was one of his stages, but Velázquez was always remembered for how he maintained his essence but always evolved according to trends. For this reason, his pictures appear dark and others, depending on the influence, are more colorful. We can compare, the movements and the colors of the painting garden views of the Villa Medici, in Romewith the frame The Pumpkin Jester.

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí was born in 1904 and is known as the greatest exponent of Surrealism and Dadaism beyond his works. A multifaceted, eccentric character in love with his muse Gala, Dalí’s work crossed borders, being one of the most recognized artists in the United States, where he is considered an artistic genius.

Between his More famous works are The Persistence of Memory (1931), The Great Masturbator (1929), and Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea (1976).

And it is that Salvador Daliwithout a doubt the most extravagant painter of all time whose works have come to create hate or love, from the most extreme points, depending on their understanding and their reception when admiring a painting.

Who would have thought that his works were inspired by someone who was jailed for walking out of an art class. There, in jail, he received an engraving press sent to him by his father and a visit from his classmate, Federico Garcia Lorcawho created verses in his “Ode to Dali” and that he read to his entire family, after composing them and thus remembering his unfairly imprisoned partner.

His surrealist works always attracted attention, especially his famous water clocks and its elephants with feet of…