In the Shadow of a Giant

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Return from Fishing 1894 (PD US) Joaquin Sorolla

There was a rare exhibition in 2014 at the Meadows Museum of Art on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas which was a must-see for anyone interested in painting. Sorolla and America, as the exhibition is called, is meant to explore for the first time Joaquín Sorolla’s unique relationship with the United States in the early twentieth century. More than one hundred works were presented, including paintings, oil sketches, and drawings.

Sorolla’s work is often compared with the two other great representational painters of his time, John Singer Sargent, and Anders Zorn. They were as masterful at painting conventional studio portraits as they were at plein air work, but it was the plein air work which informed their art. They were also well aware of developments in painting happening around them. Sargent was good friends with Claude Monet and knew many of the other French Impressionists. While no…