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Lot Essay
Fondly recalled as the “Mexican from Paris,” Zárraga first arrived in the city at the age of seventeen, after training at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City (M.L. Novelo Quintana, “El arte y el deporte en la obra de Ángel Zárraga”, exh. cat., op. cit., 1985, p. 18). Following stints in Brussels, Madrid, Toledo, and Florence, Zárraga returned to Paris and made a celebrated debut at the Salon d’Automne in 1911. Early proclivities for Symbolism and Cubism ceded to a freer, neo-realistic style by the early 1920s, a direction supported by an influential meeting with Pierre-Auguste Renoir (whose portrait he painted at Cagnes in 1919) and his friendship with Pierre Bonnard. Zárraga completed a number of murals during this decade, notably at Château de Vert-Coeur, near Versailles; in the crypt at Notre Dame de la Salette, at Suresnes; and for the Mexican Legation in Paris, with the architect André Durand. Amid a personal and artistic crisis at the start of the decade, he found salvation in “the stadium and the church,” and his paintings of sport—exemplified in Portrait of Ernest Charles Gimpel—recover the classical, humanist values associated with the “Return to Order” that followed the First World War (F. del Paso, “Ángel Zárraga: une mexicanité qui cache son visage?” in La nouvelle revue française, 2001, no. 556, pp. 259-260).
Acclaimed by a Paris newspaper as the “first great painter of soccer,” Zárraga was widely celebrated for his deft portrayals of “sport as an expression of the joie de vivre” of the 1920s (M.L. Novelo Quintana, exh. cat., op. cit., 1985, p. 18). “In a stadium,” he explained, “I rediscover the pungent, human flavor of the fight, the innocent childishness of the game, the movement that is both free and disciplined, the precise and necessary gesture” (quoted in F. del Paso, op. cit., 2001, p. 260). Zárraga was introduced to the sport by his first wife, Jeanette Ivanoff, a Russian soccer player who captained the “Sportives de Paris” to the first national title (Championnat de France) in 1922 and who features in such works as Las Futbolistas (1922; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City). “Zárraga abandons everything for the painting of sport,” notes art historian María Luisa Novelo Quintana. “He knows soccer and its players very well, since he spends his Sundays as an observer of the great game, concentrating and tracing the gestures and attitudes of the players... In his fanatical worship of the body and sports, Zárraga revisits his knowledge of anatomy, redesigns each muscle to understand its use and possibilities, understands the rhythm and function of each joint, each bone, and each organ. He savors the hidden effort and the secret work within the visible form. This return to nature, to an ordered and healthy life, truly pleases him; he belongs to that collective mass in the stands that goes wild, vibrates, and is exalted by triumph, sports, and ideals” (exh. cat., op. cit., 1985, pp. 18-19).
In the life-sized Portrait of Ernest Charles Gimpel, Zárraga portrays his boyish subject in motion on the soccer pitch, the ball at his feet. Gimpel was the son of the influential dealer, René Gimpel, who made inquiries on Zárraga’s behalf at London galleries and introduced him to the dealer Georges Bernheim in 1921; their friendship continued through the decade, with meetings—e.g., a visit with Félix Fénéon in 1929—documented in his Diary of an Art Dealer (1966). Zárraga was known to transform friends and family into footballers: Angelina Beloff, the painter and first wife of Diego Rivera, features in Futbolista rubia (1925-1926); Retrato de Ramón Novarro (1929) depicts his cousin and the charismatic star of the movie, Ben-Hur (1925). Here, the young Gimpel appears lithe and limber, softly illuminated against the Neo-Impressionistic grass and the dramatic clouds rolling through the background. The epitome of youthful vigor and grace, he moves elegantly before the low horizon, his body in dynamic balance as he dribbles the ball down the field.
On the occasion of the 1986 World Cup, held in Mexico, the country printed stamps featuring five of Zárraga’s paintings, Portrait of Ernest Charles Gimpel among them.
Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park
Acclaimed by a Paris newspaper as the “first great painter of soccer,” Zárraga was widely celebrated for his deft portrayals of “sport as an expression of the joie de vivre” of the 1920s (M.L. Novelo Quintana, exh. cat., op. cit., 1985, p. 18). “In a stadium,” he explained, “I rediscover the pungent, human flavor of the fight, the innocent childishness of the game, the movement that is both free and disciplined, the precise and necessary gesture” (quoted in F. del Paso, op. cit., 2001, p. 260). Zárraga was introduced to the sport by his first wife, Jeanette Ivanoff, a Russian soccer player who captained the “Sportives de Paris” to the first national title (Championnat de France) in 1922 and who features in such works as Las Futbolistas (1922; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City). “Zárraga abandons everything for the painting of sport,” notes art historian María Luisa Novelo Quintana. “He knows soccer and its players very well, since he spends his Sundays as an observer of the great game, concentrating and tracing the gestures and attitudes of the players... In his fanatical worship of the body and sports, Zárraga revisits his knowledge of anatomy, redesigns each muscle to understand its use and possibilities, understands the rhythm and function of each joint, each bone, and each organ. He savors the hidden effort and the secret work within the visible form. This return to nature, to an ordered and healthy life, truly pleases him; he belongs to that collective mass in the stands that goes wild, vibrates, and is exalted by triumph, sports, and ideals” (exh. cat., op. cit., 1985, pp. 18-19).
In the life-sized Portrait of Ernest Charles Gimpel, Zárraga portrays his boyish subject in motion on the soccer pitch, the ball at his feet. Gimpel was the son of the influential dealer, René Gimpel, who made inquiries on Zárraga’s behalf at London galleries and introduced him to the dealer Georges Bernheim in 1921; their friendship continued through the decade, with meetings—e.g., a visit with Félix Fénéon in 1929—documented in his Diary of an Art Dealer (1966). Zárraga was known to transform friends and family into footballers: Angelina Beloff, the painter and first wife of Diego Rivera, features in Futbolista rubia (1925-1926); Retrato de Ramón Novarro (1929) depicts his cousin and the charismatic star of the movie, Ben-Hur (1925). Here, the young Gimpel appears lithe and limber, softly illuminated against the Neo-Impressionistic grass and the dramatic clouds rolling through the background. The epitome of youthful vigor and grace, he moves elegantly before the low horizon, his body in dynamic balance as he dribbles the ball down the field.
On the occasion of the 1986 World Cup, held in Mexico, the country printed stamps featuring five of Zárraga’s paintings, Portrait of Ernest Charles Gimpel among them.
Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park