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PROPERTY OF A LADY

LA CUPLETISTA (THE BALLAD SINGER)

96 by 200cm., 37 3/4 by 78 3/4 in.

signed J. Solana l.r.

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Jaume Casanelles, Barcelona (purchased at the 1932 exhibition in Barcelona)
Galería del Cisne, Madrid
Purchased from the above by the present owner circa 1976

EXHIBITED

Madrid, Museo de Arte Moderno, José G. Solana. Oleos, 1927
Valencia, Sala Blava, José Gutiérrez Solana, 1929, no. 59 (possibly)
Barcelona, Círcol Artistic, José Gutiérrez-Solana, 1932
Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, José Gutiérrez Solana, 2004 (pp. 104-105, illustrated in colour across the centrefold of the catalogue)

LITERATURE

José Gutiérrez-Solana, Oslo, exh. cat., 1933, p. 12, no. 79, illustrated
Espasa Calpe, El Pintor Español José Gutiérrez Solana, Madrid, 1936, pl. LXXV, illustrated
Ramón Gómez de la Serna, José Gutiérrez-Solana, Buenos Aires, 1944, pl. 13, illustrated
Manuel Sánchez Camarago, Solana, Madrid, 1945, fig. 116, illustrated
José Luis Barrio Garay, José Gutiérrez-Solana, Paintings and Writings, London-New York, 1978, p. 99, fig. 137, illustrated

NOTE

Painted in 1927, Solana's magnificently brash portrayal of La Cupletista takes a highly critical look at this itinerant singer and 'artiste'.

Reclining backstage in the cramped quarters of her dressing room, the 'star turn' in one of the popular café cantante of the time, guitar at her feet, cigarette in one hand, wide brimmed sombrero in the other, Solana suggests the gypsy -- and almost certainly Andalucian -- stock of this popular type.

Plying her trade as a performer, however, the loneliness of her demi-mondaine life style is referenced in the makeshift bar of bottles and wine glasses before the make-up mirror to her right. Removed from her roots and transported to the stage, she is now neither fish nor fowl, combining as she does in the costume that she sports the skirts of a flamenco dancer with the jacket of a torero.

Solana's presentation of this socially displaced folkloric character was not only very modern in its treatment, but also very topical. And, in addressing the subject, he borrowed from leading artists before him who had tried to define this aspect of Spain's culture, in particular Goya and Manet.

The former's Dressed Maja of 1798--1805 is the most obvious antecedent for the pose of La Cupletista. But it was from the later work of Manet that Solana really took his lead. An avid Hispanophile, Manet had painted Spanish themes on a number of occasions, including his Young Woman Reclining in Spanish Costume of 1862 (fig. 1), a work which Solana clearly is quoting from in the present work. To invoke La Cupletista's modernity, however, Solana found what he was wanting in another painting by the French artist: Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergère (fig. 2). The still life of bottles and glasses by Solana is a clear reference to Manet's painting of the waitress serving behind the music hall bar, and the similar sense of psychological displacement that Manet's painting achieves.

Solana painted La Cupletista at a time when there was growing desire among the intellectuals, writers, musicians and painters of the day to define Spanish culture. Led by composer Manuel de Falla and poet Federico García Lorca, the idea of the Gypsy type as central to the Spanish soul had been gaining increasing currency. In 1922 de Falla organised a Cante jondo, a ballard singing competition in Granada to consider the similarities and differences between Andalusian and Gypsy culture, and underscore the essence of the Spanish Gypsy above all other Gypsy types. In his writing Lorca highlighted the essential contribution of gypsies to Flamenco, and in his most famous collection of poems Romancero gitano (Gypsy Ballads), written between 1924 and 1927, he celebrated the Gypsy's independent spirit. As Lorca commented, he considered the Gypsy to be 'the most elevated, the most profound, the most aristocratic of my country, the most representative of their mould, the keeper of the flame, the blood, the alphabet of Andalucian and universal truth' (quoted in Lou Charnon--Deutsch, The Spanish Gypsy, Pennsylvania, 2004, p.208).

Photograph of Solana in the Museo de Arte Moderno, Madrid, 1927 with the present work hanging on the wall behind the artist on the right.

Fig. 2, Édouard Manet, Young Woman Reclining in Spanish Costume, 1862, University Art Gallery ,Yale

Fig. 3, Édouard Manet, The Bar at the Folies Bergère, 1882, Courtuald Institute of Art, London