Emilio Sala y Francés

Alcoy (Alicante), 1850 - Madrid, 1910

He spent his childhood in Valencia, where he began to train with the painter Plácido Francés, his cousin, at the San Carlos Academy. It was there that he first exhibited one of his paintings, a still life, which won the third prize at Valencia’s Regional Exhibition in 1867.

Having completed his studies in 1871, he moved to Madrid, where with great admiration he discovered the works of Velázquez and Eduardo Rosales in the Prado. In the same year he won second prize at the National Fine Arts Exhibition, with the historic-themed painting “Prisión del príncipe de Viana” (Charles of Viana’s Prison). In 1878 he won first prize in the same contest for “Guillem de Vinatea delante de Alonso IV, haciéndole revocar un contrafuero” (Guillem de Vinatea before Alonso IV, making him revoke a contravention of Aragonese Law), acquired by the government to be placed in the Prado. Three years later he won the prize for a third time for “Novus Ortus, alegoría del Renacimiento” (Novus Ortus, Allegory of the Renaissance).

International recognition came in 1884 after trips to Rome and Paris which were made possible by a grant from the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. The Rome Fine Arts Academy appointed him a distinguished member, in Munich he was awarded the Cross of Saint Michael and in Berlin he won the Gold Medal at the 1891 exhibition. Paris was the city which gave him most international projection. It was there that he painted his last historical painting, “La expulsión de los judíos” (The Ousting of the Jews), which won him the second prize at the 1889 Universal Exhibition. In Spain, he received the most prestigious award of all public distinctions, the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabel La Católica.

He then began to focus on genre and landscape painting, using a loose and realistic brushstroke. He renewed these styles thanks to his brilliant skill at employing clear tones to use light as an expressive element. Since his early days, Emilio Sala sought realism by distributing masses of colour in relation to the anatomical structure of what he presented, approaching his subject from a fundamentally artistic standpoint. This was how he made his light-filled portraits, highly influenced by Parisian taste at the end of the century, such as that of actress María Guerrero when she was still a young girl (still on show at the Almagro Theatre Museum in Ciudad Real).

His illustrations for “Episodios Nacionales by Pérez Galdós” were shaped by this realistic conception. But he became best known as an illustrator through the modernist works he made for the newspaper supplement “Blanco y Negro”, focusing on the upper-class customs of the time. Another example of this was his work “Dama con escopeta” (Woman with Shotgun) for the 1902 UEE calendar, starting the collection’s tradition of representing a feminine figure, in line with tastes of the time.

He culminated his career as a modernist with the commission to decorate the main halls of the Madrid Casino, the murals of which he was working on when he died on 14 April 1910 and which were finished by his friend and disciple Cecilio Pla, also present in the UEE Collection.

In his final years he performed major research in areas relating to physical optics, and in 1906 he published an essay entitled “La gramática del color“ (The Grammar of Colour). The success of this publication, which became a reference handbook for all painters of the time, led the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts to create a chair in “Colour Theory and Aesthetic”, which Emilio Sala occupied until his death.

1902 Emilio Sala Huntress Oil on canvas 54 x 27 cm.