The online collection and picture sale

Although he spent his childhood in Bilbao, in 1910 or thereabouts Fernando emigrated with his family to Buenos Aires. Six years later, and with some art training under his belt, he returned to Bilbao. Convinced of his artistic calling, the same year he joined the Association of Basque Artists, holding his first individual show at the Association's headquarters. The 37 works included in the show exhibited the themes and styles that were to dominate the most interesting phase of his production, which lasted for the following decade. At the time he was clearly seduced by exotic Andalusian and Orientalstyle themes, which he combined with the kind of cosmopolitan Paris art practiced by Anglada-Camarasa.

Fernando eventually became the artist of the dissolute life of modern Paris, the city's cabarets and cafés with live acts, the Russian and Andalusian ballets and its ladies of the night, who were almost exclusively the subjects of his paintings during this period. A new feminine ideal gradually evolved, one of mysterious women with distant, melancholy eyes, modern Salomés of the new Babylon.

All this was clear enough in his exhibitions at the premises of the Association of Basque Artists (1917 and 1918) and the Salón Lacoste gallery in Madrid (1918). However, the paradigmatic work that summed up his career until then arrived in 1924: the Symbolist Lady with Fan. Presented at that year's National Exhibition, it portrays an elegant Art Deco woman who, in holding a fan of feathers at head height, seems to transform into some kind of exotic bird. The harmonies of greens and violets of the gardens, and the silvery sheen of her dress, perfectly exemplify Fernando's use of colour in his oil paintings.

An exhibition in 1927 at the Association of Basque Artists heralded a radical change in Fernando's motifs: he was beginning to produce colourful still life paintings and landscapes mostly of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. Both genres were regular features of his production from then on, although they tended to lay bare the errors in drawing and colour obviated by the attractiveness of the subjects of his earlier works. Despite everything, he continued to exhibit in Madrid and Bilbao.

Fernando eventually became the artist of the dissolute life of modern Paris, the city's cabarets and cafés with live acts, the Russian and Andalusian ballets and its ladies of the night, who were almost exclusively the subjects of his paintings during this period. A new feminine ideal gradually evolved, one of mysterious women with distant, melancholy eyes, modern Salomés of the new Babylon.

All this was clear enough in his exhibitions at the premises of the Association of Basque Artists (1917 and 1918) and the Salón Lacoste gallery in Madrid (1918). However, the paradigmatic work that summed up his career until then arrived in 1924: the Symbolist Lady with Fan. Presented at that year's National Exhibition, it portrays an elegant Art Deco woman who, in holding a fan of feathers at head height, seems to transform into some kind of exotic bird. The harmonies of greens and violets of the gardens, and the silvery sheen of her dress, perfectly exemplify Fernando's use of colour in his oil paintings. [Mikel Lertxundi]

Selected bibliography

• Bengoechea, Javier de. Catálogo de arte moderno y contemporáneo del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. Bilbao, Banco de Vizcaya, 1980. p. 168. (Con el título La dama del abanico).
• Mur Pastor, Pilar. La Asociación de Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao ; Caja de Ahoros Vizcaína, 1985. pp. 122, 126.
• Pérez Rojas, Francisco Javier. La ciudad placentera : noche y día de la vida moderna [Cat. exp.]. Sevilla, Fundación El Monte, 2005. p. 283, n° cat. 98.
• A cidade pracenteira : da verbena ao cabaré [Cat. exp.]. A Coruña, Museo de Belas Artes, 2006.
• Guía Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. p. 103.
• Gida Euskal Artistak. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa, 2008. p. 103.
• Guide Basque Artists. Bilbao, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 2012. p. 103, n° cat. 51.