Cristóbal Ruiz Pulido

After several years of searching, I finally learned the name of the painter and the title of the work I noticed in The Limits of Control. Very little is available in English on Cristóbal Ruiz Pulido, but it was his painting, a portrait of his daughter in a hallway, that triggered a need to know more about his work. A substantial article in Spanish can be found here.

Cristóbal Ruiz Pulido, painter and poet, was born in 1881 in Villacarrillo, a city in the south-central province Jaén in Spain. He studied at the School of Fine Arts, Cordoba with Rafael Romero Barros and then in San Fernando in Madrid with Alejandro Ferrant. From 1902 to 1914 he lived in France, Belgium and Holland, studying under Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1910 he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. In 1917 he won third prize, and in 1920 Tierras de labor won second prize. In 1925 he participated in the exhibition and in the manifesto of the Iberian Artists Hall, and the following year he exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid. Among the works from this period is his portrait of the poet Antonio Machado, his best known work. Four years later he moved to Úbeda to teach at the School of Arts and Crafts, and returned to Madrid in 1932 to teach at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando. In 1933 he participated in the Revolutionary Art Exhibition in Madrid Ateneo. After the Civil War he left Spain in 1938, going into exile, moving to Puerto Rico, where he taught at the University of Puerto Rico. He joined artists such as Sánchez Felipe, Marichal, and Fernández Granell, teaching and painting. He passed away in Mexico City in June of 1962. A book on Cristóbal Ruiz, La pintura y la lírica de Cristóbal Ruiz, was published by Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño in 1987.

Retrato de su hija en un pasillo / Portrait of His Daughter in a Hallway / Retrato de la hija del artista (1923)