322 - Philip Alexius de László, PRBA,

Philip Alexius de László, PRBA, Hungarian / British 1869-1937- José María Menéndez Behety, seated three-quarter length, wearing a suit and a blue tie with a pearl tie-pin, holding a cigarette, with one hand on his knee and the other resting on the arm of a carved chair; oil on canvas, signed, dated, and inscribed 'de László / PARIS / 1930' (lower right), bears later inscribed label verso, 122.6 x 97 cm. Provenance: Private Collection. Literature: DLA121-0016, letter from de László to Luis Ramirez, 26 June 1928. The de László Archive Trust, 'The Catalogue Raisonné of Works by Philip de László (1869-1937) [online]', no.111945. Note: This portrait was painted in de László’s Paris studio in January and February 1930 after sittings for the portrait [110556] of his wife and youngest son, Arturo, many of which José Menéndez Behety had attended. As a result, when it came to his turn to be painted, the artist and the sitter already knew each other well. On the back of the canvas is attached a note in Spanish giving a short summary of the artist’s career together with the title the family gave to the portrait: L’HOMME À LA CIGARETTE. De László’s fee for the portrait of José Menéndez Behety was £1000, the artist had already painted the portrait of his wife and youngest son for £2000. As he explained in a letter: “I understand Mr. J. Menendez wishes to have two portraits painted. The one of his wife with child three quarter lengths for £2000 – and his portrait for £1000 – three quarter length – I accept to paint Mr. Menendez Behety portrait for that Honorarium as an exception – as I have to paint the group – but hope it will not be mentioned to friends.”The artist’s honorarium fluctuated considerablyand the sum quoted was slightly above the prices he commanded in 1930. The portrait is listed in the catalogue of de László’s exhibition at the Charpentier gallery in June 1931, however, documents in the artist’s archive indicates that it was in fact the double portrait of his wife and son Arturo that was exhibited. José María Menéndez Behety was a sheep farmer on a grand scale. He was born in Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile on 15 May 1876, the second son of the nine children of José María Menéndez y Menéndez (died 1918) and María Behety Chapital (1848-1908). His father, from a modest farm-labouring family in Asturias, northern Spain, had set out aged fourteen for the New World in search of his fortune and had arrived in Argentina, via Cuba, in the mid 1860s. The year before their son’s birth, he and his wife moved south to live in Punta Arenas in the Chilean region of Patagonia, then a hostile pioneering region, its borders constantly disputed by both Chilean and Argentine governments, who showed scant respect for the indigenous Amerindian population. There he established his business empireof the ‘oro blanco’ of sheep farming, having transported sheep from the Falkland Islands to Patagonia and founded his first company, José Menéndez y Compañía by 1876, the year of the sitter’s birth. José Menéndez Behetygrew up and studied in Patagonia and also in Uruguay, where his mother had been born. He began his apprenticeship, at an early age, in his father’s company, by now known as the Sociedad Anónima Ganadera Comercial Menéndez Behety. The company already imported sheep handlers and dogs from Scotland and New Zealand and the young José was sent to Australia for several years to gain further sheep-farming experience. He returned to work the ranches of San Gregorio, Avelina and the new ranches in Tierra del Fuego, Primera Argentina S.A. (Estancia José Menéndez) and Segunda Argentina S.A. (Estancia María Behety), and soon became Director of the Compañía Industrial y Frigorífico de Magallanes. José María Menéndez Behety married Teresa Montes Thürler (1887-1984) in Punta Arenas on 13 June 1908. She was the daughter of José Montes Pello, an important ranch-owner in Patagonia of Spanish origins, and Eugenia Thürler Rauss. There were four children of the marriage: José Alejandro Menéndez Behety Montes (born 1909), María Teresa (born 1911), Luis Alfonso (born 1914) and Arturo (born 1918). Together with his four brothers and three brothers-in-law, José Menéndez Behety administered and expanded the multiple businesses which had been so successfully established by José María Menéndez y Menéndez. The brothers founded the Sociedad Anónima Ganadera Argentina Menéndez Behety only a year after their father’s death in 1918. José worked especially with his brother Alejandro in founding the Sociedad Ganadera Estancia Glencross in the Province of Santa Cruz and the Agrícola y Pastoril La Tehuelche Company in the Province of Buenos Aires. After the death of their second son, Luis Alfonso, from appendicitis in 1924 at the age of eleven, José and Teresa decided to move the family from remote Patagonia to Europe for several years