His beginning as an artist is tied to the Real Escuela de Tres Nobles Artes in Seville, where he first appears on the student roster in 1802, and to the workshop in that same city where his uncle Salvador Gutiérrez, an outstanding copyist of Murillo, fostered his interest in that artist. In fact, Murillo had a fundamental influence on Guitérrez’s style and part of his subject matter. In 1825, after years of study, he obtained the post of assistant painter and began an important career, painting portraits and religious scenes that not only made him extremely popular with Seville’s bourgeoisie and clergy, but also allowed him to travel to other cities on the Iberian Peninsula. On a trip to Cádiz in 1829, for example, he became friends with the British consul, John Brackenbury, and portrayed his family.
After returning to Seville, he attempted to establish closer contact with Madrid’s Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. After presenting them with a painting on a Murillo-like subject, he visited the city with Esquivel in 1831 to compete for the First Class Prize at that institution. Neither artust succeeded, but they were both named academicians of merit the following year, and settled in Madrid. Gutiérrez’s post and his gift for portraiture helped him gain access to the court’s important families and to the royal palace itself, and in fact, his works constitute a veritable gallery of the leading figures in Madrid’s official and social circles during the second third of the nineteenth century. His models include members of the royal family, including Isabella II, whom he portrays at different ages, as well as Maria Christina and the Duchess of Montpensier, who were enchanted with Gutiérrez’s smooth, skilful and flattering likenesses. Nevertheless, his aspirations to the post of court painter were never fulfilled.
Despite living in Madrid, he maintained contact with Seville, which he visited in 1843 to assume the post of Director of the Real Escuela de Tres Nobles Artes. In 1847, however, he resigned as he found it impossible to meet his responsibilities there while living in Madrid. From then on, he worked mostly in Madrid and continued to teach at the Academia de San Fernando. He was active in the city’s artistic and literary life at a time when writers and painters had many shared interests. In fact, Gutiérrez was an important member of the Liceo Artístico y Literario, one of the fundamental institutions of Spanish Romanticism.
While Gutiérrez was primarily a portrait painter, he also made an outstanding number of religious works, and his stylistic debt to Murillo was particularly useful in that area, as that painter’s work was then quite popular throughout Europe. While still living in Seville, Gutiérrez had also painted a group of costumbrista works that reflect the burgeoning taste for such subject matter in that city during the Romantic era.
His beginning as an artist is tied to the Real Escuela de Tres Nobles Artes in Seville, where he first appears on the student roster in 1802, and to the workshop in that same city where his uncle Salvador Gutiérrez, an outstanding copyist of Murillo, fostered his interest in that artist. In fact, Murillo had a fundamental influence on Guitérrez’s style and part of his subject matter. In 1825, after years of study, he obtained the post of assistant painter and began an important career, painting portraits and religious scenes that not only made him extremely popular with Seville’s bourgeoisie and clergy, but also allowed him to travel to other cities on the Iberian Peninsula. On a trip to Cádiz in 1829, for example, he became friends with the British consul, John Brackenbury, and portrayed his family.
After returning to Seville, he attempted to establish closer contact with Madrid’s Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. After presenting them with a painting on a Murillo-like subject, he visited the city with Esquivel in 1831 to compete for the First Class Prize at that institution. Neither artust succeeded, but they were both named academicians of merit the following year, and settled in Madrid. Gutiérrez’s post and his gift for portraiture helped him gain access to the court’s important families and to the royal palace itself, and in fact, his works constitute a veritable gallery of the leading figures in Madrid’s official and social circles during the second third of the nineteenth century. His models include members of the royal family, including Isabella II, whom he portrays at different ages, as well as Maria Christina and the Duchess of Montpensier, who were enchanted with Gutiérrez’s smooth, skilful and flattering likenesses. Nevertheless, his aspirations to the post of court painter were never fulfilled.
Despite living in Madrid, he maintained contact with Seville, which he visited in 1843 to assume the post of Director of the Real Escuela de Tres Nobles Artes. In 1847, however, he resigned as he found it impossible to meet his responsibilities there while living in Madrid. From then on, he worked mostly in Madrid and continued to teach at the Academia de San Fernando. He was active in the city’s artistic and literary life at a time when writers and painters had many shared interests. In fact, Gutiérrez was an important member of the Liceo Artístico y Literario, one of the fundamental institutions of Spanish Romanticism.
While Gutiérrez was primarily a portrait painter, he also made an outstanding number of religious works, and his stylistic debt to Murillo was particularly useful in that area, as that painter’s work was then quite popular throughout Europe. While still living in Seville, Gutiérrez had also painted a group of costumbrista works that reflect the burgeoning taste for such subject matter in that city during the Romantic era.