MANUEL GARCÃA Y RODRÃGUEZ (Seville, 1863 - 1925).
"Port of Cadiz".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Enclosed certificate issued by Don Gerardo Pérez Calero.
Signed and located (Cádiz), in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 73 x 100 cm; 100 x 127 cm (frame).
The work represents an everyday view of the seaport of the city of Cádiz, in spring or summer. This work is an interesting example of the work of the painter, who visited the city of Cádiz on numerous occasions, being able to produce this piece between 1918-1919, an artistic stage of maturity in which the insertion of the figures in the landscape combined with an aesthetic of a luminist character dominated.
García y Rodríguez began his training with José de la Vega Marrugal and then moved on to the Seville School of Fine Arts, where he was a pupil of Eduardo Cano and Manuel Wssel. At first he devoted himself to the figure, but certain circumstances, including the influence and fascination exerted by Marín Rico and Fortuny on young Sevillian artists and the commercial successes of Sánchez Perrier's first trips abroad, led him to turn his attention to landscape painting, which from then on was practically his only subject. He regularly took part in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, winning a third medal in 1887 for his work "Orillas del Guadalquivir" ("Shores of the Guadalquivir"). He also won second medals in 1890 for "La tarde" and in 1895 for "Tarde de otoño". He also took part in the Fine Arts Exhibitions in Seville from 1921 until his death. In 1888 he took part in the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona, and the following year in the Universal Exhibition in Paris. In 1891 his work "Entrance to an Orchard in Seville" was acquired by the Barcelona Museum at the 1st General Exhibition of Fine Arts; that same year the State of Prussia acquired his work "Seville" at the Berlin International Exhibition. During the following years he also showed his works at exhibitions in Chicago and Munich. Around 1893 he made a visit to Morocco, recently visited by other Sevillians such as Sánchez Perrier and Gonzalo Bilbao, where he returned in 1904. In 1889 he was appointed a member of the San Fernando Academy in Madrid, and between 1902 and 1903 he was an active member of the Fine Arts Centre of the Seville Athenaeum. He was an illustrator as well as a painter, and in this discipline he collaborated with the weekly magazine "Blanco y Negro" and also with "La Ilustración Artística". García y Rodríguez depicted in his canvases the most typical corners of Seville, such as the banks of the Guadalquivir and the Guadaira, the corners of the Alcázar and the neighbourhoods of Seville. He belonged to the colony of landscape painters of Alcalá de Guadaira, founded by Emilio Sánchez Perrier, of which Jiménez Aranda was also a member. This group, influenced by Corot and the Barbizon school, frequented the hamlets and outskirts of this Sevillian town, whose nooks and crannies and views of the banks of the Guadalquivir became a constant feature of their work. García y Rodríguez is currently represented in the Museo del Prado (work on deposit at the Municipal Museum of Málaga), the Museo Nacional de La Habana, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, among others.