Raoul Martinez Biography
Raul Martinez was born in Paris in 1876 to a wealthy family of Cuban origins, who collected works by impressionists and post-impressionists, allowing their son to become familiar with these artistic movements from a young age.
Thanks to his painter friend Willem Paerels, Martinez has access to his studio and thus delves deeper into the world of art. Initially self-taught, he enrolled in 1907 at the Free Academy "L'Effort" in Brussels, where he came into contact with an avant-garde group later known as the "Belgian Fauves". In their paintings you can see the strong influence of Cézanne, Van Gogh and Matisse.
When the First World War broke out, Martinez and his Belgian wife Hortense Christiaens took refuge in the Netherlands. After the war, Martinez began to exhibit frequently in group exhibitions and it was during one of these exhibitions, that of the “Flet Signaal” group in 1918 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, that the collector HP Bremmer purchased two of his still lifes. This meeting pushes Martinez to continue his career in the Netherlands, where Bremmer is in contact with a wealthy audience of art enthusiasts and where he provides advice and financial support to several artists to whom he feels particularly attached.
His work mainly includes still lifes, city views, landscapes and self-portraits. Martinez was influenced by Cézanne and Van Gogh, especially in his early paintings, but also by Fauvism, Futurism and Cubism. However, he always preferred a recognizable representation of subjects to the most extreme abstract representation.
The 1920s and 1945s are characterized by great clarity in his paintings, with three-dimensional composition and defined forms. After a few years, the colors become lighter and more temperate, but the subjects remain the same. After the Second World War, one can notice a slight increase in city views (especially of Paris) and landscapes, where the suggestion of the immensity of space and movement is impressive.
Martinez, a solitary man, dull and vital at the same time, will be linked to the Netherlands until the end of his life, but will also make several stays in Belgium and live in France. He died in Paris in 1974.
