José de Togores

The Spanish painter José de Togores, a friend of Pablo Picasso, also lived in Paris from 1918 onwards. Inspired by such exemplary artists as Cézanne and Renoir he painted figures in particular, female nudes and portraits, as well as still lifes and landscapes. His art was initially in the Magic Realism style (1919–23). Up until 1930 he then turned to Surrealism and liberated himself both suddenly and completely from surrealism and abstraction. He returned to figure painting and, as such, departed from the path to Modernism.

José de Togores was represented by the art dealers Daniel H. Kahnweiler in France and Alfred Flechtheim in Germany. He belonged to those Spanish artists living in Paris who soon found recognition in Germany where the style of his work – which tended towards New Objectivity – became particularly well established. When Kahnweiler stopped representing several artists such as Manolo and Masson as a result of the ensuing Great Depression at the end of the 1920s, Togoros was also among them. Flechtheim, however, who usually acquired works from Paris through Kahnweiler, stayed faithful to Togores. Various works by the artist were included for example at the end of 1932/beginning of 1933 at a group exhibition ‘New Spanish Art’ at Flechtheim’s gallery.