Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor experienced the vagaries of Modernism (Orpheus Attacked by Bacchantes), even in 1900 when he received the Scholarship of the Spanish Academy in Rome for his painting The Family of the Anarchist on the Day of Execution (the theme set by the San Fernando Academy for the contest, in which Manuel Benedito and Eduardo Chicharro were also scholarship recipients). He would later paint society portraits, a field in which he was highly successful (and would even paint the royal family). He also depicted rural life in Galicia in a luminist style that can be compared to the work of Abram Arkhipov and Anders Zorn. Álvarez de Sotomayor’s portraits follow the traditional approach of the English style established by Anthony van Dyck in the 17th century and those of Sir Thomas Lawrence, but without the latter’s genius or magnificent quality. His portraits were acceptable, as was his drawing. He taught at and ran the San Fernando Academy, and was the director of the Museo del Prado for two periods: between 1922 and 1931 and between 1939 and 1960.
Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor experienced the vagaries of Modernism (Orpheus Attacked by Bacchantes), even in 1900 when he received the Scholarship of the Spanish Academy in Rome for his painting The Family of the Anarchist on the Day of Execution (the theme set by the San Fernando Academy for the contest, in which Manuel Benedito and Eduardo Chicharro were also scholarship recipients). He would later paint society portraits, a field in which he was highly successful (and would even paint the royal family). He also depicted rural life in Galicia in a luminist style that can be compared to the work of Abram Arkhipov and Anders Zorn. Álvarez de Sotomayor’s portraits follow the traditional approach of the English style established by Anthony van Dyck in the 17th century and those of Sir Thomas Lawrence, but without the latter’s genius or magnificent quality. His portraits were acceptable, as was his drawing. He taught at and ran the San Fernando Academy, and was the director of the Museo del Prado for two periods: between 1922 and 1931 and between 1939 and 1960.