JOSÉ PUENTE
He is one of the best painters in the bullfighting field. He died in Madrid at age 73.
Jose Puente devoted his life to taurine painting and became a classic reference. He was born in Medina del Campo in 1928, although he settled in the suburb of Pinto when he was 18 years. He began his artistic career as a graphic designer and publicist but soon drifted to the branch that would give him a name and prestige. He learnt his art in the most traditional streets of downtown Madrid and in the bullfighting arena. He worked for the former magazine The Ring, where he published his first cover in 1948. His name is among the most outstanding poster artists of the twentieth century, like Roberto Domingo, Llopis or Reus. He inherited, on his own right, the tradition of illustrating the bullfighting chronic in the pages of ABC in 1981.
His paintings, endowed with a great popular taste, depict also scenes from El Rocío pilgrimage, besides touching the fields of flamenco and taurine art. He favors an impressionist style made with very simple lines.
José Puente lived in Madrid, in the famous Santa Ana Square, but his soul slept in Seville. He was a painter who never missed an opportunity to be in Seville during spring. With him, an era in the bullfighting painting starts and ends, as well as in the Sorolla Art Gallery.
Jose Puente's painting is impressionistic, he drank from sources such as the canvases of Martinez de Leon, Roberto Dominguez, Wallet, Marcos González or Antonio Casero. However, the best imagination of this artist is his own.