Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench

Who was Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench?

Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench was a Spanish painter, and one of the most prominent artists of Valencia from the end of the nineteenth century, working in the Impressionist style.

Born into a poor family, Pinazo was forced from a young age to assist in supporting the family by practising various trades. He had only attended eight grades when his mother died of the cholera, and young Ignazio was variously employed as a silversmith, a painter of tiles, and a decorator of fans. After his father's death, he lived with his grandparents, and in 1864 enrolled in the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, Valencia, earning his living as a hatter.

His artistic career started when he was 21, and he achieved his first success in Barcelona three years later. In 1871, work by him was displayed in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts for the first time.

He visited Rome twice, the first time thanks to the sale of a painting. From 1876 to 1881 he lived in that city on a grant.

When he returned to his native city in 1874, he abandoned the conventional historic themes he had so far devoted his efforts to, and instead started painting family subjects, nude figures, and scenes from daily life, thereby anticipating Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida and Francisco Domingo both in subject and style. This is the beginning of a more intimate, Impressionist style.