GONZALO BILBAO MARTÃNEZ (Seville, 1860 - Madrid, 1938).
"Interior courtyard".
Watercolour on paper.
With dedication by Gonzalo Bilbao to his mother.
Size: 27 x 20 cm; 45 x 35 cm (frame).
Encouraged by José Jiménez Aranda, Gonzalo Bilbao started drawing as a child. At his father's request he began to study law, which he alternated with artistic training. After graduating in law in 1880, he devoted himself exclusively to painting. He travelled with Jiménez Aranda to Italy and France, and in Paris he visited museums, galleries and the studios of French artists. He remained in Italy for three years, living in Rome, where he worked with the painter José Villegas Cordero. He returned to Spain in 1884 and travelled around the country in search of new landscapes to paint, as well as alternating stays in Morocco, Paris and Munich. From 1903 he taught at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville, where his pupils included Vázquez Díaz and Eugenio Hermoso, among others. He won numerous medals in both national and international competitions, including the sole medal at the Universal Exhibition in Chicago (1893), the first medals at the National Fine Arts Exhibition (1899, 1901; of honour in 1915), the gold medal at the Berlin International (1899), and the first medals at the International Exhibitions in Buenos Aires (1910), Santiago de Chile (1910), San Francisco (1915) and Panama (1916). The bulk of Gonzalo Bilbao's work is currently housed in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville.