Gabriel Morcillo Raya received his first education in art at the embroidery workshop of his aunt Paquita Raya. At the age of nineteen, he enrolled in the School of Industrial Arts in Granada, which was under the directorship of Manuel Gómez-Moreno González. There he learned painting from Miguel Vico Hernández and José de Larrocha González. In 1907 he moved for a time to Madrid, to continue his studies under Cecilio Pla. However, he could not afford to stay and moved back to Granada. In 1910, he received a scholarship from Granada Provincial Council to continue his interrupted studies in Madrid, where he lived until 1914. During his time in the city, he submitted work to the 1912 National Exhibition of Fine Arts, receiving an honourable mention. He did not participate in the contest again. In 1916 he was awarded a scholarship to attend the School of Fine Arts in Rome. However, he turned it down, perhaps as a result of winning the competition to design a poster for the local Corpus Christi festivities three years running.
The decision to stay in Granada engendered a form of isolation that characterised practically all of the rest of his life and made him a very singular artist. His style of painting was also very characteristic. Over the years, he continued to employ the same, insistent, oily, material practically without changes. However, his subject matter ranged from local characters (very much in keeping with contemporary tastes and one of the hallmarks of Spanish art), and a highly personal universe inspired by the tales of Washington Irving and the legends of medieval Granada. Both his figures and his still lifes exude an extraordinary sensuality, with his own very personal and characteristic brand of orientalism. Throughout his life, he enjoyed uninterrupted success in Spain and abroad, with exhibitions in New York, Buenos Aires and Venice.
In addition to his painting, Morcillo also gave classes, first, at the Alhambra Painters Residence in 1922; and from 1927 on, at the School of Arts and Crafts, where he lectured in decorative painting and life drawing, a post he first acquired as a substitute teacher in 1922. He went on to become a professor and was the director of the institution until his retirement in 1957. He had many followers, both at the School of Arts and Crafts and at his studio, creating his own school of art. Some of his students, such as Rafael Revelles and Miguel Pérez Aguilera, produced work that was aesthetically similar to that of the master. Others copied him so closely that their work has sometimes been confused with Morcillo's, as in the case of Ramón Carazo Martínez, who kept alive his technique, aesthetics and entire universe. Others, more in line with their times (such as José Guerrero and Manuel Rivera), moved away from his teachings, producing more informalist and abstract art.
In 1951, Gabriel Morcillo was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise, earning him new prestige and recognition among the Spanish political and economic elite of Madrid, whom he portrayed between 1955 and 1960. On the first centenary of his birth in 1987, the Caja General de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Granada dedicated a large anthological exhibition to the artist.
Gabriel Morcillo Raya received his first education in art at the embroidery workshop of his aunt Paquita Raya. At the age of nineteen, he enrolled in the School of Industrial Arts in Granada, which was under the directorship of Manuel Gómez-Moreno González. There he learned painting from Miguel Vico Hernández and José de Larrocha González. In 1907 he moved for a time to Madrid, to continue his studies under Cecilio Pla. However, he could not afford to stay and moved back to Granada. In 1910, he received a scholarship from Granada Provincial Council to continue his interrupted studies in Madrid, where he lived until 1914. During his time in the city, he submitted work to the 1912 National Exhibition of Fine Arts, receiving an honourable mention. He did not participate in the contest again. In 1916 he was awarded a scholarship to attend the School of Fine Arts in Rome. However, he turned it down, perhaps as a result of winning the competition to design a poster for the local Corpus Christi festivities three years running.
The decision to stay in Granada engendered a form of isolation that characterised practically all of the rest of his life and made him a very singular artist. His style of painting was also very characteristic. Over the years, he continued to employ the same, insistent, oily, material practically without changes. However, his subject matter ranged from local characters (very much in keeping with contemporary tastes and one of the hallmarks of Spanish art), and a highly personal universe inspired by the tales of Washington Irving and the legends of medieval Granada. Both his figures and his still lifes exude an extraordinary sensuality, with his own very personal and characteristic brand of orientalism. Throughout his life, he enjoyed uninterrupted success in Spain and abroad, with exhibitions in New York, Buenos Aires and Venice.
In addition to his painting, Morcillo also gave classes, first, at the Alhambra Painters Residence in 1922; and from 1927 on, at the School of Arts and Crafts, where he lectured in decorative painting and life drawing, a post he first acquired as a substitute teacher in 1922. He went on to become a professor and was the director of the institution until his retirement in 1957. He had many followers, both at the School of Arts and Crafts and at his studio, creating his own school of art. Some of his students, such as Rafael Revelles and Miguel Pérez Aguilera, produced work that was aesthetically similar to that of the master. Others copied him so closely that their work has sometimes been confused with Morcillo's, as in the case of Ramón Carazo Martínez, who kept alive his technique, aesthetics and entire universe. Others, more in line with their times (such as José Guerrero and Manuel Rivera), moved away from his teachings, producing more informalist and abstract art.
In 1951, Gabriel Morcillo was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise, earning him new prestige and recognition among the Spanish political and economic elite of Madrid, whom he portrayed between 1955 and 1960. On the first centenary of his birth in 1987, the Caja General de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Granada dedicated a large anthological exhibition to the artist.