José Tomás Errázuriz

Who was José Tomás Errázuriz?

José Tomás Errázuriz Urmeneta was a Chilean landscape painter and diplomat. He was of Basque descent.

José Tomás Errázuriz was born in Santiago, the son of Maximiano Errázuriz Valdivieso and of Amalia Urmeneta Quiroga. He studied painting at the Academia de Pintura de Santiago, where he was a student of Ernesto Kirbach and later juggled his diplomatic work in Paris with art classes by Humbert Giroez. He married Eugenia Huici, one of the most beautiful women of her age, who was to become a patron of modernism of the 20th Century and noted interior designer, and who was a decisive influence in his work. She soon convinced him to move to Paris in 1882, where his brother-in-law Ramón Subercaseaux was the Chilean consul.

Around 1900 the Errázurizes relocated to London. José Tomás Errázuriz fell sick with tuberculosis, spent much time in Switzerland, and eventually he and his wife became estranged. Nonetheless during this stay, he acquired for his art most of the characteristics of English painting, even though he was also a strong admirer of the French landscape tradition and painted many times the coast of Normandy, where he lived for long periods of time.