Background
Zanetti was born in Burgos, Spain, on May 27, 1913. He spent his early years in León and then resided in Madrid.
(The adventures of an eccentric Spanish country gentleman ...)
The adventures of an eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion who set out as a knight and squire to right wrongs and punish evil.
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Zanetti was born in Burgos, Spain, on May 27, 1913. He spent his early years in León and then resided in Madrid.
In 1933 Vela Zanetti received a public scholarship to study art in Florence, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War ruined his plans. The artist later described the following years as "long and full of trials", mainly due to the fact that Vela Zanetti’s father was executed for his socialist beliefs during the war. "The death of my father... made more of me than normal circumstances would have. His death forced me to explore the limits of my abilities, to be a son worthy of his father."
Zanetti fled into exile in 1939 in the Dominican Republic, as did such artists as Josep Gausachs and Eugenio Granell. There he painted more than 100 murals of farmworkers and rural scenes, many of them on a heroic scale. Zanetti achieved significant success in the Dominican Republic. He had his first one-man exhibition in Santo Domingo in 1940, a year after his arrival, and his career as a muralist thrived. In addition to his work as a painter, he became a professor at the National School of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo in 1945, and in 1949 he was offered the post of a director of the school.
He won a John Simon Guggenheim scholarship for young Hispanic artists that gave him a chance to go to New York. In 1953 Vela Zanetti painted his work Mankind's Struggle for a Lasting Peace. During this period of time the artist used generally blue and brown colours, the works depicted the atrocity of war and people working together, trying to rebuild the world. Later Mr. Zanetti also lived in Mexico, Colombia and Switzerland.
In the year 1960 Vela Zanetti returned to Milagros, Spain, where he lived in his childhood house. In his later years, Zanetti particularly focused on portraits, still lifes, landscapes and religious works. One of the artist's last works was a portrait of the Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi.
(The adventures of an eccentric Spanish country gentleman ...)
Mural of Mina
The Merengue
Untitled
Untitled
Don Quijote inmortal
The Harvest
Mural of Human Rights. Emblem Un
Mural of Human Rights. Dead Child (Detail)
Sweat
The Land of Castile
Self Portrait
Tlaloc, God Of The Rain
The Shepherdess
The Sower
Shepherd at Sunste
Vintage in Ribera del Duero
Cradle of America
Extract for Indian Mural
Evacuation of the Pyrenees
The Age
Siesta
Still Life of the Earth
Mankind's Struggle for Lasting Peace (detail)
Mural of Human Rights. The Seeds that Give the Fruit (Detail)
Mankind's Struggle for Lasting Peace (detail)
Man Seeknig Peace
The Harvest
Gallo
La artesa de pan
Tercer boceto para soldado muriendo
Young Boy with a YoYo
Mercado criollo
Couple
Campesino
Gallo
Quotations: "I get up at dawn to benefit from the light, and I stop painting at dusk. Mural painting has given me this discipline."
Vela Zanetti was married to Esperanza de la Cuevas. They parented a daughter, Maria, and a son, José.