Federico pradilla ortiz autobiography

The most famous Spanish artist named Francisco was of course Goya, whose life and work I have just completed reviewing. He was born and brought up in and close to Zaragoza, where another great Spanish painter named Francisco also trained.

Next week, I commemorate the centenary of the death of Francisco Pradilla Ortiz, who was born in a village in Zaragoza province in 1848, and died on 1 November 1921.

More traditionally, he would have been known as Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz, with Pradilla as his paternal and Ortiz his maternal surnames.

For that reason, he’s known not as Ortiz but as Pradilla.

Pradilla started his artistic training in the city of Zaragoza, then moved to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, also studying there at the Academy of Watercolourists.

His first major painting as a student was this version of the popular narrative, Rape of the Sabine Women (1874), which won him a scholarship to study at the Spanish Acade