BENJAMÍN PALENCIA (Barrax, Albacete, 1894 - Madrid, 1980). "Vase with Carnation, 1971. Wax on paper. Signed and dated in the lower left corner. Work referenced in the Benjamín Palencia Archive with registration number D010/71. Measurements: 47 x 32 cm; 67 x 50 cm (frame). After beginning his training as a self-taught artist, Palencia moved to Madrid at the age of fifteen. In the capital he entered the Julio Moisés Free Academy, where he coincided with other outstanding painters such as Salvador Dalí. In 1926 he travelled to Paris and met Picasso and Miró, and on his return to Madrid he made his individual debut at the Museum of Modern Art (1928). He then made several study trips to Italy, Berlin and New York. In 1941 he founded the Vallecas School, and in 1943 he was awarded the First Medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. In 1974 he was appointed a member of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and a few years later of the San Jorge Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona. Benjamín Palencia's style, starting from surrealism, cubism and other avant-garde movements, finally evolved towards an austere realism. Gradually, his style became more intense and powerful, with the forms acquiring greater volume and, in painting, the painter's concern focusing on the luminous aspects. Focusing his work on landscape painting, he tried to restart a second Vallecas School together with Álvaro Delgado, Carlos Pascual de Lara, Gregorio del Olmo, Enrique Núñez Casteló and Francisco San José. His paintings and drawings would include images of the Castilian countryside and the figures to be found in it, peasants and animals, bulls, horses, goats, etc. His painting became a testimony of the rough, the uncouth and the rural, the sober Castilian and the Spanish. Palencia is represented in the Reina Sofía National Museum, in the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid and in the Fine Arts Museums of Valencia and Albacete, among many others.