In the Café - Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

Buy image

In the Café

Guiard, Adolfo

Bilbao, 10/04/1860-Bilbao, 08/03/1916

Oil on canvas stuck to tablex

39 x 60 cm

1885

Late 19th century

92/1

Acquired in 1992

Adolfo Guiard was the first Basque painter of his generation to go to Paris (1878), even stealing a march on Catalonian painters Rusiñol and Casas. Guiard headed for the French capital after training in Bilbao with the painter of popular scenes Antonio María Lecuona and in Barcelona with Martí Alsina. In Paris, his contact with Degas led him to develop an Impressionism based on delicately expressive drawing, without ever forgetting the rooted sense of reality learnt from his friend Émile Zola. Back in Bilbao in 1885 or possibly 1886, he worked until his death on painting in the open air using a clear palette. The landscape and the rural work of the province of Bizkaia, provided his main themes.

Degas's influence is appreciable in In the Café, a painting set in Paris done with masterly ease in alternating shading and colour with traces of drawing. Themes such as this, dealing with the urban life of the bourgeoisie, borrowed from his friend and master, and conceived almost as snapshots, would rarely be seen in his painting after his return to Bilbao, except at the beginning, in the large canvases he produced for the Sociedad Bilbaína in 1886-1887. [Javier Viar]

Selected bibliography

  • Encina, Juan de la. Guiard y Regoyos. Bilbao, Publicaciones de Editorial Vasca, 1921. p.7.
  • Anselmo Guinea y Adolfo Guiard [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Banco de Bilbao, 1980. p. 46, n° cat. 1. (Con el título 'Tertulia de café' (París))
  • Pintores y escultores vascos de ayer, hoy y mañana. Bilbao, La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca, vol. XXIV, 1982. pp. 177-192.
  • Pintores españoles de la luz [Cat. exp.]. Madrid ; Barcelona, Banco de Bilbao ; Ajuntament, 1983. pp. 103, 149, n° cat. 52. (Con el título tertulia de café. París)
  • González de Durana, Javier. Adolfo Guiard : estudio biográfico, análisis estético, catalogación de su obra [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao ; Caja de Ahorros Vizcaína, 1984. pp. 144, 199, n° cat. 53. (Con el título 'En el café')
  • Mur Pastor, Pilar. La Asociación de Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao ; Caja de Ahoros Vizcaína, 1985. pp. 118, 273.
  • De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en la colección del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Salamanca, Caja Duero, 2006. pp. 210-211, n° cat. 53. (Con el título En el café)
  • De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Valencia, Consorci de Museus de la Comunitat Valenciana ; Caja Duero, 2006. pp. 210-211, n° cat. 53. (Con el título En el café)
  • De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Salamanca, Caja Duero, 2007. pp. 210-211, n° cat. 53. (Con el título En el café)
  • De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 450-452, n° cat. 97.
  • Guía Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 39-40.
  • Gida Euskal Artistak. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa, 2008. p. 39.
  • Guide Basque Artists. Bilbao, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 2012. pp. 39-40, n° cat. 16a.
  • Francisco Durrio, 1868-1940 : sobre las huellas de Gauguin [Cat. exp.]. Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2013. p. 74, n° cat. 26.