Rosario de Velasco

Rosario de Velasco Belausteguigoitia (Madrid, May 20, 1904 - Barcelona, March 2, 1991) Spanish painter. Born in Madrid, in her early years she started an active painting career. "Pupil of Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor y Zaragoza, developed a neo-traditional style imbued with Magic Realism. Her favourite subjects were seascapes, portraits and landscapes. In 1932, she obtained second prize at the National Fine Arts Exhibition with Adam and Eve, showing a fully-clothed man and woman lying in a meadow. In 1936, she took part in the Jeu de Paume exhibition “Contemporary Spanish art. Painting and sculpture”, where she presented Carnaval".[1] Member of the female branch of the Falange Española, she take active part in many cultural events. During the Spanish Civil War she was sentenced to death in Barcelona but she escapes with the help, among others, from his future husband, Xavier Farrerons-Co, a MD. They both got married during the war in their own house and run away to France from the Catalan-French border to re-enter again from the French-Navarra border. They live in a small town in the Burgos province. In 1938 Rosario de Velasco delivered her only child in San Sebastian, a girl called María del Mar Farrerons de Velasco. At the end of the war the 3 of them return to Barcelona.

In Barcelona, the painter catch up her career successfully taking part in many exhibitions. She also quits the active political activity. She will start to have solo exhibitions developing a much more personal style mostly in oil on canvas works although she made some works in fresco paintings and book illustration. In the late 50 she became more personal and grown and reach critic success and sales with regular solo exhibitions in Sala Gaspar (Barcelona), Sala Parés (Barcelona), Syra (Barcelona) among others. In the late 60 she starts to paint in oil on paper with more artistic freedom creating some of her best works. She dies in Barcelona in 1991 with a legacy of many works some of them in prestigious museums such as The Centre Pompidou in Paris (Carnaval, 1936) and Sketch of Mother and Son, 1936 or Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Adam and Eve, 1932). Most of her work stays in her family collections, mainly in her daughter's, María del Mar Farrerons de Velasco. References:[2]

Rosario de Velasco was awarded second medal for painting at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid for Adán y Eva (Adam and Eve), done the same year. She went on to show the piece at exhibitions organized by the Society of Iberian Artists in Copenhagen between December 1932 and January 1933.