Career
Álvarez de Sotomayor visited the Colegio Mª Cristina in El Escorial and at the age of 10 years was the only person to draw a portrait of King Alfonso XII in his death bed (the drawing still belongs to the painter"s family) and participated in courses of philosophy and literature in Madrid. Before his return to Spain in 1904, he visited France, Belgium and the Netherlands. They had seven children.
Around 1910 he moved to Chile, where he held the chair of coloration and composition at the art school and became director of lieutenant
In 1915, the family returned to Spain. Back in Madrid, he was nominated court painter of Alfonso XIII. As director of the Museo del Prado, he was in charge until 1931 when he was obliged to leave the post due to the rise of the republic in Spain.
He later became director of the museum a second time after the Spanish Civil War until he died. He played a great role in hiding most of the paintings the museum held during the Spanish civil war and later on recuperating them.
From 1953 to 1955 he was also director of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.