13 Facts About Ignacio Zuloaga

Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta was a Spanish painter, born in Eibar, Guipuzcoa, near the monastery of Loyola.

Ignacio Zuloaga was the son of metalworker and damascener Placido Zuloaga and grandson of the organizer and director of the royal armoury in Madrid.

Ignacio Zuloaga's great-grandfather who was the royal armourer was a friend and contemporary of Goya.

Ignacio Zuloaga's first painting was exhibited in Paris in 1890.

Ignacio Zuloaga was nearly destitute, and lived off some meager contributions by his mother and the benevolence of fellow Spaniards, including Paco Durrio, Pablo Uranga, and Santiago Rusinol.

Ignacio Zuloaga attempted to gain success during a sojourn in London; but lackluster patronage led him to return to Spain, settling in Seville, then Segovia, and developed a style based on a realist Spanish tradition, recalling Velazquez and Murillo in their earthy colouring and genre themes.

Ignacio Zuloaga painted portraits of attired bullfighters and flamenco dancers; or portraits of family members and friends in such attire.

Ignacio Zuloaga painted village dwarves and beggars, often as stark figures in a dreary landscape with a traditional landscape or town in the background.

Ignacio Zuloaga favored earth or muted tones, including maroon, black, and grey, with the exception of colorful folk attire or the bright red cassock in some paintings.

Ignacio Zuloaga was accepted into the Venice Biennale in 1901 and 1903, and displayed 34 canvases at the Barcelona International exposition of 1907.

Ignacio Zuloaga painted a similarly painting of individuals undergoing a traditional mortification of the flesh and a bleeding crucified Christ called The Flagellants.

Ignacio Zuloaga was committed to the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War and the Spanish State of the caudillo Franco, whose portrait he painted in 1940.

Ignacio Zuloaga was later to claim that he was aghast, as a francophile, when Hitler defeated France in 1940.