JOSÉ VELA ZANETTI (Milagros, Burgos, 1913 - Burgos, 1999). "Breaking bread", Milagros, 1972. Oil on panel.

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Contemporary and Actual Art

By Setdart Auction House

Dec 15, 2021

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  JOSÉ VELA ZANETTI (Milagros, Burgos, 1913 - Burgos, 1999). "Breaking bread", Milagros, 1972. Oil on panel. Signed, dated and located in the lower left corner. Attached certificate signed by the artist. A preparatory drawing for this work is published in the book "VELA ZANETTI" by Victoriano Crémer, 1974. Measurements: 150 x 250 cm; 165 x 264 cm (frame). From Milagros, his hometown, Vela Zanetti created a personal vision of the peasantry. In his works he gave birth to a true epic of the rural world, whose customs, people and work he represented with a profound sense of human dignity. The large-format panel presented here shows the splendid technique of the artist from Burgos, based on a masterly forceful stroke and a warm, richly nuanced chromaticism. In front of a field in his native Castile, a group of four peasants stop their daily chores to have lunch, leaving aside their sickles and other work tools. The four characters, arranged in a circle around the central snack while drinking from a wineskin and breaking a loaf of bread, reveal the sacred and solemn condition sought by Zanetti. Born in Milagros, in the province of Burgos, he moved to León with his family when he was a child. There he held his first exhibition in 1931. Supported by his father, after finishing high school he travels to Madrid for a few months to see exhibitions and visit the Prado Museum. Shortly afterwards he obtained a scholarship to visit Italy, granted by the Provincial Council of León. As a consequence of the Spanish Civil War he went to the Dominican Republic, where he remained until 1960. In Santo Domingo he started, together with other exiled artists, the National School of Fine Arts. During this period he held exhibitions and projects in Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico and the United States. In 1951 the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation of New York awarded him a grant for a singular project: the creation of a large-scale mural for one of the main spaces of the United Nations headquarters, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This project definitively catapulted the master from Burgos, and is today considered his most important work both for its symbolic relevance and for its expressiveness and artistic quality. He himself said of this work: "I hope that those who contemplate this mural will realize that peace must be won, not once and forever, but every day, remembering the sufferings of the past and making real what men aspire to for the future". Vela Zanetti also painted other important murals, such as those on historical themes for the Provincial Council of Burgos or the frescoes of the old Ercilia Theater in Barahona, Dominican Republic. He was an academician of San Fernando, and Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Burgos. The Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid held in 2001, under the title "Antológica", a retrospective exhibition on the work of Vela Zanetti, the most important to date. In 2009 an exhibition commemorating the tenth anniversary of his death was held at the Ángeles Penche gallery in Madrid. In short, an important exhibition dedicated to the work of Vela Zanetti, commemorating the centenary of his birth and the most complete anthology of this painter held to date, was held at the Fórum Evolución in Burgos. His works are currently preserved in the funds of the Caja Rural de Burgos and the Vela Zanetti Foundation in León, as well as murals in various cities in Spain, Santo Domingo, the United States, Colombia and Switzerland.
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