Antonio de La Gándara
Antonio de La Gandara (December 16, 1861 - June 30, 1917) was a painter, pastellist and draughtsman born in Paris, France.
At only 15, Gandara was admitted as a student of Gerome and Cabanes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His talent, strongly influenced by two cultures – his father was Spaniard born in San Luis Potosi, (Mexico) and his mother an Englishwoman – was soon to be recognized when the jury of the 1883 Salon des Champs-Elysées singled out his first work ever exhibited, a portrait of Saint Sebastian.
Less than ten years later, young Gandara had become one of the favourite artists of the Paris elite. His models included Countess Greffulhe, Grand-Duchess of Mecklenbourg, Princess of Chimay, Prince de Polignac, Prince de Sagan, Leconte de Lisle, Verlaine, Leonor Uriburu de Anchorena, Sarah Bernhardt, Romaine Brooks, Mrs. Gautreau, Jean Moreas, and Winnaretta Singer.
But the virtuosity of his portraits – simplicity and the finest details are often reconciled on the same canvas - should not mask the quality of his Natures Mortes much influenced by Chardin or the serenity of his scenes of the bridges, parks and streets of Paris. The artist illustrated a small number of publications such as Les Danaïdes by Camille Mauclair. With James McNeill Whistler, Forain and Yamamoto, La Gandara illustrated Les Chauves-Souris of French poet Robert de Montesquiou. The book, published in 1893, has become today a rare collector's item.
The first exhibition of Gandara's work organised in New York by Durand-Ruel in 1898 was a major success and confirmed the painter as one of the Masters of his time. Major newspapers and magazines routinely reproduced his portraits, several of which made the front page of publications like the fashionable Le Figaro Magazine.
Gandara participated in the most important exhibitions in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Barcelona or Saragossa.
He died on June 30, 1917 and was interred in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France.
His fame faded rapidly after his death, at the age of 55, during the first World War. With the current growing interest for the 19th century, Gandara has re-imposed himself as a key witness, through his canvases first, but also as the model chosen by novelists Jean Lorrain or Marcel Proust, or through the anecdotes of his own life narrated by Goncourt, Georges-Michel, or Robert de Montesquiou.
Below is the painter's autoportrait.
