Julio Romero de Torres

Private Collection, Buenos Aires
Purchased from the above by the present owner circa 1953

Pedro Massa, Romero de Torres, Buenos Aires, 1943 & 1947, p. 142 & 146
Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Julio Romero de Torres, exh. cat., 2002-2003, pp. 41-42, illustrated in colour

Original canvas. There are a few scattered spots of retouching, notably to the figure's ear and left-hand shoulder. Apart from three very minor flecks of paint loss, to the upper centre and near the lower edge, this work is in very good condition and ready to hang. Held in a simple, wide wood frame.
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Painted between 1928 and 1929, the sitter is the actress Elena Pardo, who made her fame and fortune in the Teatro Romea de Madrid. She is seen in the costume of a torero, against the backdrop of a narrow alley leading to the Plaza de las Ventas, Madrid's bull ring. Pardo was among Romero's favourite models, appearing in no fewer than seventeen paintings between 1925 and 1929, many of them in the Museo Romero de Torres. The art-deco overtones of the present work no doubt grew out of Romero's visit to the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925. In relation to his broader oeuvre, La niña torera can be seen in the context of a series of portraits of Cordoban and Sevillian toreros he painted, including Lagartijo, El Guerra, Machaquito, and Juan Belmonte.

Romero de Torres was the son of a painter, Rafael Romero Barros, curator and founder of the Provincial Museum of Fine Arts in Cordoba, the building where Julio and his brothers Enrique and Rafael, also painters, were born. He referred to himself as a frustrated flamenco singer, and claimed that if he had had to choose between being the flamenco singer Juan Breva or the artist Leonardo da Vinci, he would have chosen Breva.

Romero's social conscience was central to his work. In his hallmark, Leonardo - inspired portraits like the present one, ordinary women - prostitutes, gitanas, actresses, demi-mondaines - show that they still have dignity and pride in spite of their position on the periphery of society.

Romero enjoyed huge success as an artist all over the world, including London, Paris, Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile. Women of all social classes posed for him at his easel. When he died, every shop, theatre, and bar in Cordoba closed its doors and the whole city poured onto the streets for his funeral. This was the funeral of a man who had immortalised the Cordoba woman and the Andalusian copla with inimitable style.