Manuel Cabré Alsina (January 25, 1890 – February 26, 1984) was a noted Spanish-Venezuelan landscape painter who is remembered as "''the painter of El Ávila''" ().

Life and career

Cabré was born on January 25, 1890, in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, Spain to Spanish sculptor Ángel Cabré y Magriñá (1863–1940) and Concepción A. de Cabré. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, he lived in Venezuela along with his father, who had been invited by President Joaquín Crespo to undertake public works activities in

Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern p ...

. At 14, Manuel Cabré entered the Academy of Fine Arts of Caracas, where his father taught Sculpture. In 1912, along with Leoncio Martinez, Rafael Aguin, Cruz Alvarez Garcia, Julian Alonzo, Antonio Edmundo Monsanto and other artists, Cabré founded the ''

Círculo de Bellas Artes The Círculo de Bellas Artes is a private, non-profit, cultural organization that was founded in 1880. Its building, located in Madrid, Spain, was declared ''Bien de Interés Cultural'' in 1981. The CBA is a major multidisciplinary centre with one ...

'', an anti-academic group which rebelled against

Antonio Herrera Toro Antonio Herrera Toro (16 January 1857 – 26 June 1914) was a Venezuelan painter, art critic and professor. Biography He was born in Valencia, Carabobo, and began his artistic studies in 1869 under the tutelage of Martín Tovar y Tovar. Five ...

's teaching methods. Enamored with the Venezuelan landscape, he soon moved to the Cerro El Ávila mountains north of Caracas, where he painted in many different shades and from many different angles. After several successful exhibitions in Caracas, he moved to Paris, where he resided until 1930. At this time, he practiced

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

and

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

. In 1931, he returned to Venezuela and dedicated himself to zealously capturing nature scenes in his country. In 1951, he won the National Prize for Painting and in 1955, the Herrera Toro Award, in the sixteenth Official Hall, besides other important awards. He was director of Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas between 1942 and 1946. Manuel Cabré was a landscape painter with a proficiency in technique, color and form. He died in Caracas on February 26, 1984, leaving behind an extensive collection of art.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cabre, Manuel 1890 births 1984 deaths Painters from Barcelona Venezuelan painters 20th-century Spanish painters 20th-century Spanish male artists Spanish male painters Spanish landscape painters Spanish emigrants to Venezuela