ANTOINE CHARTRES (1903-1968). Sketch for "MADONNA WITH CHILD". Ink on paper. Signed. 25 x 19 cm; 39 x 33 cm (frame).

DANIEL VÁZQUEZ DÍAZ (Nerva, Huelva, 1882 - Madrid, 1969). "The bathers". Oil on canvas. Signed in the lower right margin. Measurements: 57,5 x 68,5 cm; 70 x 82 cm (frame). This painting belongs to the Parisian stage of Daniel Vázquez Díaz, initial period of his career in which he knows the main protagonists of the avant-garde. However, he remains faithful to himself. He seeks his own heartbeat in the reality that surrounds him. The joy of living, the sensuality of young bodies harmonizing with nature, are themes that interest him at that time because they express his own feelings. The bathers by the river of crystalline waters have been resolved with a precise drawing, conjugated with luminous ranges. Daniel Vázquez Díaz began to paint in his student years, after discovering the work of Zurbarán and El Greco. In 1903 he moved to Madrid to focus on painting and copy the masters of the Prado, and there he became friends with Juan Gris, Solana and Dario de Regoyos. Three years later he settled in Paris, where he worked with the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and met Picasso, Braque, Modigliani and Max Jacob, among others, and assimilated a certain avant-garde spirit. During these years he began to develop his personal style, which mixed the constructive brushstrokes of Cézanne with the geometric structure and planes of cubism. Upon his return to Spain in 1918, he began teaching, first in his studio and later at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, where he obtained the chair of mural painting in 1932. Through his classes, Vázquez Díaz will spread a cubism of architectural monumentality, and that serves as a bridge to the young artists with the trends that were developing in the rest of Europe. In addition to being an excellent landscape painter, Vázquez Díaz stood out as an illustrator and portraitist of some of the most important figures of his time. Among his mural works, it is worth mentioning those made for the monastery of La Rábida in Huelva, between 1927 and 1930, which consecrated him as a painter. In 1968, a year before his death, he was appointed member of the Academy of San Fernando. He is currently represented in the Reina Sofía National Museum, the museum that bears his name in Nerva, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Telefónica Foundation and the Fine Arts Museums of Bilbao and Seville, among others.