- Type of work: Easel painting
- Technique: Oil on canvas
- Approximate dimensions: 95 x 78 cm
- Subject: Portrait
- Title: Portrait of Mr. Faustino Martín Albertos
- Author: José Aguiar García (1895-1976)
- Chronology or Year: (1930-1940)
- Historical-artistic analysis:
Style: Portrait painting, within the academic tradition, with fidelity to reality used as an expression of the personality and psychology of the person represented.
Description: It is a seated portrait inside a room where a red armchair, slightly oriented to the right, welcomes the character represented who turns his face towards the viewer in an attitude of observation, reserve and a certain defiance. Located in the foreground, the background of the room is occupied by a garden landscape with lush vegetation, seen through an open window or simply forming part of a painting that adorns the wall, thus creating the effect of the painting within the painting. This resource, together with the armchair and the elegant posture of the personage sheathed in dark clothing, can be considered identifying elements of the social rank of the person represented, whose physiognomy, faithfully recreated, acts in turn as a vehicle of expression of his emotional state, thus achieving the psychological capture of the character enveloped in an atmosphere of a certain melancholy. The chromatic contrasts of the painting stand out, where color, used boldly, luminous and vibrant, builds the forms, giving them solidity and plasticity.
Date of reception: The canvas was incorporated into the Casino collection in 2000, donated by Mrs. Argelia Martín Santaella through the mediation of the then Secretary of the Society, Mr. Antonio Salgado Pérez.
Remarks: The painting was found by chance by Mr. Antonio Salgado Pérez, then Secretary of this Institution, when he visited Mrs. Argelia Martín Santaella, distant relative of Mr. Faustino Martín Albertos, in order to obtain information about the above mentioned personage in order to found the Prize that was going to bear his name by initiative of the Board of Directors of the Casino. At the end of the interview, Mrs. Martín Santaella expressed her willingness to donate to the Casino a portrait of Don Faustino that she kept in her home, since that would have been the wish of the man who had been president of the institution from 1928 to December 1936. The person represented, a lawyer by profession, was linked to this institution for many years, not only as president from December 1928 to December 1936. In the General Meeting of 20 – 11 – 1916 he began his participation in the board of directors of the society as Librarian, and then became Secretary in 1919, Member in 1923 and Secretary again in 1924 and 1925. He was a close friend of the painter José Aguiar, whom he commissioned the Friso Isleño during his presidential term. The portrait was probably made during those years of his mandate, and in it we can perceive his friendship in the approach and understanding of the portrayed, to whom he was also united by their common relationship with Freemasonry. In this sense, it should be remembered that Miguel Martín Fernández de la Torre, his brother Néstor and the sculptor Francisco Borges were also Masons. All of them contributed, together with Aguiar, to the construction and decoration of the new Casino building, under the presidency of Don Faustino Martín.
About the author: José Aguiar García (Vueltas de Santa Clara, Cuba,1895- Madrid, 1976), born in Cuba into a family of emigrants, soon returned to La Gomera where he was baptized in the parish of San Marcos de Agulo. He went to Madrid in 1914 to study Law, but abandoned his studies to study Fine Arts at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando as a disciple of José Pinazo Martínez (1879 – 1938), continuing his training in Florence with a scholarship from the Cabildo Insular de La Gomera. In contact with Renaissance art (especially Masaccio and Michelangelo), he discovers the beauty of the nude and the encaustic technique that he will use for the first time in the Friso Isleño del Casino de Tenerife and will use from then on in his large murals. Since 1920, he has been participating in the National Exhibitions, obtaining a third medal in 1926 for Figures of the gold medal in 1929 for the Women of the Souththe medal of honor for Estío in 1944 and the gold medal of the Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid in 1934 with Nude seated. In 1959 he was named member of the Hispanic Society of America and in 1960 of the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.
Bibliography:
Casino de Tenerife Archive: Minutes of the Board of Directors’ Meeting of March 30, 2000
Carmen Nieves CRESPO DE LAS CASAS: José Aguiar, his life and work. Aula de Cultura del Cabildo Insular de Tenerife. Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1975.
Ángeles ABAD: José Aguiar. Viceconsejería de Cultura y Deportes del Gobierno de Canarias, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1991.
Valeriano WEYLER: The small history of a great casino (The one in Santa Cruz de Tenerife). Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1964.
Agustín GUIMERÁ RAVINA, Alberto DARIAS PRÍNCIPE: El Casino de Tenerife 1840 – 1990, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1992.
Antonio SALGADO PÉREZ: “Una pequeña historia del lienzo-retrato de don Faustino Martín Albertos, obra de don José Aguiar”, in the magazine Casino de Tenerife, no 8. Santa Cruz de Tenerife, April 2001, pp. 22 y 23.
David MARTÍN LÓPEZ: Confidences of an architect: Miguel Martín Fernández de la Torre. Conference given at the Casino of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on December 3, 2008.
