Martín Rico Y Ortega Biography | Oil Paintings

Martín Rico y Ortega was one of the most important artists in Spain during the second half of the nineteenth century and enjoyed wide international recognition in France and the United States.

Martín Rico y Ortega received his earliest formal training at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where he studied under the Romantic landscape Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, Rico’s earliest works show him influenced by Romanticism. In 1860, after winning a government scholarship, Rico moved to Paris to continue his studies.

Once in France, Martín Rico y Ortega was inspired by the Barbizon School artists and Charles-François Daubigny in particular. His landscapes from this decade depict the French and Swiss countryside in a fully accomplished Realist style.

At the invitation of his good friend and colleague Marià Fortuny, Rico moved to the southern city of Granada, joining Fortuny and his wife, as well as the painter Ricardo Madrazo, the son of painter Federico De Madrazo. The three artists worked closely during this period, but the painting style of Rico and Fortuny overlapped so much that their paintings, were frequently mistaken for each other.

In 1873 Martín Rico y Ortega and Fortuny traveled together to Italy, stopping in Florence, Rome, Naples, and finally Venice, and here, more than any other city he had visited, that captured Rico’s artistic imagination. For the next thirty-six years, Rico spent every summer painting in Venice’s unique setting, with its plazas, churches, and canals, as well as its magnificent natural light, this attracted many artists, including Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Pierre Renoir and Federico del Campo. Following in the tradition of the Italian vedute of the eighteenth century, Martín Rico y Ortega frequently painted en plein air, often from a gondola anchored in a canal.

Artists Influencing Martín Rico y Ortega: Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, Charles-François Daubigny.
He Traveled To Italy, France, Switzerland, England.
Artist Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.