#Beltrán Masses

[mote-historie]

Federico Beltrán-Masses, Lady Michelham, 1920s.

[random-brushstrokes]

Federico Beltrán Masses - La Novia del Legionario (1923)

[dozydawn]

Madeleine Bonnardel in Madeleine Vionnet HC FW 1933.

Photograph by George Hoyningen-Huene.

Painting by Federico Beltrán Masses.

[balkanparamo]

Federico Beltrán Masses (1885-1949) - L’Île d’amour. Les fleurs du mal

[womblegrinch]

Federico Beltrán Masses (1885-1949) - L’Île d’amour. Les fleurs du mal

Oil on cardboard. 11 x 9 inches, 28 x 23 cm.

Estimate: €3,000-4,000.

Sold Setdart, Barcelona, 14 Feb 2023 for €2,700 + B.P.

The painting’s title refers to the collection of poems by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, first published in 1857.

[lemuseum]

[love-for-carnation]

Red Carnation (1925) Federico Beltrán Masses (1885-1949, Spainish)

[thesorceresstemple]

[withnailrules]

Federico Beltrán Masses

[bored-observer]

Federico Beltrán Masses - Salom (1949)

[agarcil]

✔Federico Beltrán Masses 

Los Limones 

Federico Beltrán Masses (Spanish, 1885–1949)

Oil on canvas

[mote-historie]

Maja Maldita by Federico Beltrán Masses, 1918, oil on canvas, 161.5 x 202 cm.

For contemporary critics and collectors, La Maja Maldita was perhaps the most famous of Beltran Masses' œuvre. The fact that it is also a portrait of an extraordinary figure from the world of dance has been subsumed by the painting's drama and title.

The sitter, Carmen Tortóla Valencia (1882-1955), was a dancer who invented her own unique style based on a study of Arab, Indian and African dance, combining the African-Carribbean music with that of her Spanish heritage. Like her near contemporary Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) she eschewed the strictures of conventional technique, instead embracing a freedom of movement that set both apart from the traditions of classical dance. Her innovative approach and extravagant performances brought her extraordinary fame and sold out performances across Europe and South and Central America, while she also took the lead roles in two Spanish silent films – Pasionaria and Pacto de lágrimas (both in 1917).

Her unrestrained private life cast her in some eyes as the Accursed Maja of the title of this painting – the liberated seductress who had abandoned the corset as an an unwieldy restraint on female movement, whose male lovers were chosen for their intellect but with little regard to permanence, while her long-term companion was a woman, Ángeles Magret Vilá. She rejected the Catholic faith of her ancestors and instead embraced Buddhism, vegetarianism and morphine, but managed nonetheless to make a considerable fortune which enabled her to retire from the stage in 1930.

Her dancing and striking looks inspired poems by the Basque poet Pio Baroja,[i] the dramatist and later anarchist Ramón del Valle Inclan[ii] and the Nicaraguan born writer Ruben Dario. [iii] This portrait of her as the Maja Maldita is perhaps the truest to her character of all the many images of her in dance poses, sometimes wearing even more revealing costumes. Unlike these photographs, however, Beltran's painting portrays her recumbent, a mysterious seductress; there is no hint of movement or of the source of her fame. She stares into the distance, her vermillion lips emphasising her pale features, her unclothed right arm just touching the guitar that is a feature of so many of Beltran's paintings. Through the darkened window, framed by long translucent fabric, we glimpse a mysterious building placed against a deep blue starlit sky. (x)

[random-brushstrokes]

Federico Beltrán Masses - Les Fleurs Du Mal (1946)

[1five1two]

Federico Beltrán Masses.

[womblegrinch]

Federico Beltrán Masses (1885-1949) - Odalisque aux fruits

Oil on canvas. 38.6 x 39 inches, 98 x 99 cm.

Estimate: €3,000-5,000.

Sold Aguttes, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 27 June 2023 for €11,700 incl B.P.

[dakhmagnasu]

Les Fleurs Du Mal (1946) - Federico Beltrán Masses (1885-1949