María Blanchard

Who was María Blanchard?

María Gutierrez Blanchard was a Spanish painter. Blanchard was the daughter of journalist Enrique Gutierrez Cueto and Concepción Blanchard Santisteban. Born with various disabilities, she was small in stature, hunchbacked and unable to walk. She was the cousin of Mexican artist Germán Cueto.

In 1903 she moved to Madrid and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando with Fernando Alvarez de Sotomayor, Manuel Benedito and Emelio Sala. In 1909 she continued her artistic education at the Academie Vitti in Paris under Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa and Kees van Dongen. Here she discovered cubist painting, and was influenced by Jacques Lipchitz and Juan Gris. In 1914 she returned to Madrid where she had an exhibition organized by Ramón Gómez de la Serna.

In late 1916 she finally went to Paris to paint there. In 1920, she exhibited in France and Belgium. After her exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants in 1921, her paintings were in great demand. Due to the adverse economic situation which followed, the collectors withdrew and she was financially supported by the literature enthusiast Frank Flausch until her death.