Buying Miguel Zaragoza paintings – Highest Prices Paid: Artist Bio & images follow:
MIGUEL ZARAGOZA (Filipino/Spanish, 1847-1923).
Miguel Zaragoza was a painter, writer and teacher who was contemporary of Don Fabian de la Rosa, Don Rafael Enriquez and Toribio Herrera. In his youth, Zaragoza was a student of the Manila Academy who was sent for further education in Madrid as a “pensionado.”
Considered an early Philippine Master, he was known mainly for his portraits and also for the illustrations he published in La Ilustracion Filipina. His works gained recognition in the 19th century, but not on the level of Juan Luna who was also his contemporary. He must have felt a sense of competition with Luna about whom he once said “Fame fattened his billfold.”
One early review, mentioning both Zaragoza’s portraits and landscapes has the following to say:
“Miguel Zaragoza is preferred by many art lovers as a portrait painter. But his landscapes have a sombre mood and style of their own. His two in the gallery show the Zaragoza play of purple and green and the peculiar Zaragoza push-brush technique.”
Felix Roxas had this to say about Zaragoza:
“Miguel Zaragoza was equally skillful with the pen and the brush, handling them with the delicacy of art studied in Rome.”
Zaragoza was also a critic and taught art and anatomy at the University of the Philippines.
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