Ramón Gaya y Pomés (10 October 1910 – 15 October 2005) was a Spanish painter and writer.

Biography

Ramón Gaya was born in

Murcia Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...

to Catalan parents Salvador Gaya and Josefa Pomés. His parents had moved to Murcia so Salvador could better engage in his profession of lithography. Ramón's father had some painter friends, Pedro Flores and Luis Garay, Christopher Hall and Darsie Japp, who helped instruct Gaya in art in his early years. He left school early to pursue the profession of painter. Already at the age of 17, Gaya had his first major exhibition in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. He became involved with Frederico Garcia Lorca's theatre drawing sets and was head of the painting department in the ''Las Missiones Pedagógicas''. He was the youngest part of the group named ''la Generación del 27.'' His later works were influenced by the old masters such as Velázquez,

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

as well as

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

. In June 1936 he married Fé Sanz in Madrid. At the start of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

he joined the Alliance of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. His wife Fé Sanz was killed in the bombing of Figueres, during the last days of the war, where his daughter, Alicia survived. With the army he crossed the Pyrenees and spent sixteen days in the concentration camp of Saint-Cyprien. After the war, he went into exile to France, where he was separated from his daughter, and, later to Mexico. In 1956 he returned to Europe and settled down in Rome, Italy. In the 1970s he returned to Spain, Madrid. His work can be seen at ''Caffé Greco'', in Rome. In 1990, in his hometown of

, in the south-east of Spain, the Ramón Gaya de Murcia Museum was set up, for which the painter gave over a hundred of his works. Gaya was also active as a writer, poet, and art critic. In the course of his 95-year life he received numerous awards, including the National Award for Plastic Arts in 1996 and the in 2002. In 1999, he received the honorary doctorate from the

University of Murcia The University of Murcia ( es, Universidad de Murcia) is the main university in Murcia, Spain. With 38,000 students, it is the largest university in the Región de Murcia. The University of Murcia is the third oldest university in Spain, after t ...

. Gaya was considered one of the best painters of Spain of this century and belongs to the last surviving representatives of the generation of 1927.(es
La verdad, Obituary
/ref> Image:Ramón Gaya - Los baños de Tiber (1971).jpg, ''The Tiber baths'' (1971)

References

1910 births 2005 deaths Murcian writers Spanish artists {{Europe-artist-stub