MANUEL FERNÁNDEZ
Manuel Fernández García is a Spanish painter dedicated to the genre scene. He was born the 29th December 1927 in Bogas Street (San Felipe neighborhood.)
With genre scenes he creates wonderful landscapes and country towns of Spain.
His first memories are featured by his sister, Dolores, and parents. In 1992 his father opened a clothe shop next to Puerta de Sevilla. He grew in this shop and he keep good memories of his neighbours.
His paternal great-grandparent was also a religious painter, although he painted a desert landscape about the Three Wise Kings. He signed his artworks with the surname Pérez. He had a son who was also a painter and his signature was Pérez Hurtado. Moreover, Juan de la Cruz was another artist of this family, but older, and who died in the mental hospital of Seville, where some paintings of him could be found.
He painted in the convent of the Dominican nuns. His toddlers were his models. He painted the children when they were punished and they knelt or back to the wall. It is the most distant memory of this artist in relation to the painting.
He started the High School in San Hermenegildo School (Dos Hermanas, Seville) as a boarder. However, he could not finish his studies because he had to start working with his father.
He studied technical and artistic drawing in this school as subjects, but he did not like the drawing pen style.
The warehouse of his father´s shop was the place selected for José Arpa Perea to be the space to keep his oil paintings, canvas, easels and paintbrushes. This famous painter of this time painted everyday there except on Sundays.
One of the painters, called Manuel, took a can of paint without permission and he painted a landscape in the flat roof Torre of San Felipe.
It was his first oil painting. Arpa liked it, so he never complained, just the contrary. Therefore, Manuel went to paint with Arpa on many occasions, since at that time all the painters searched natural views: landscapes, courtyards, beautiful squares, etcetera.
Shortly after, Manuel and Arpa used the warehouse of the shop as the place where they painted. Manuel´s father did not have any problem, as those years were quite precarious due to the post-war era. As both artists spent a lot of time together, there was a pharmaceutical, Rafael, who always said: "there they are, the instructor and the apprentice." and Arpa, who was 90 years old, answered: "no, no, we are friends."
The apprentice remembers that he received a lot of advices from his instructor. Every time he presented an artwork, his instructor never said "It is not like this", but "I would have done it this way". Therefore, Arpa pleasantly corrected Manuel in order to make his progress better and to improve his pictorial perception of reality. He achieved this, since Manuel transmitted a plastic tradition and natural way of painting, two features that perfectly show a great quality in his works. Undoubtedly, Manuel is a representative of the Andalusian landscaping since the last third of the 19th century.
During his life, he did not need to move around other cities; he stayed in Carmona almost all the time. _______--
His artworks can be found in Spain and in other countries, such as Germany, Mexico, the United Stated or Japan.