20^th Century Spanish

At a very early age Tenreiro Brochón attended the studio of the Post-Impressionist painter Jesús Fernández, aka Jesito, and from 1939 the School of Arts and Crafts of La Coruña.

In 1942 he travelled to Madrid to prepare his enrolment at the ETSA School of Architecture (1945-1951). Spain in those post-war years was dominated by misery and repression, but that did not stop the young Antonio, with his liberal and progressive mentality, from needing to believe in a future of hope full of new ideas. He combined his architectural training with painting, a discipline that became a vehicle to express himself and that drew from the cultural life he was beginning to experience in Madrid, with its museums, gatherings, exhibitions... It was precisely thanks to his visits to exhibitions that he got in touch with the European avant-gardes, among which the Italian avant-garde caused a special impact on him, and very particularly the work of Benjamín Palencia, whose love and commitment with landscape and nature exerted a great influence in Tenreiro Brochón. He was connected with the

 Second

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

 

(1939-1942) the sequel to the first

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

, founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez and disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War. After the war, the art group was reborn as the so-called Second

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

. This second version was promoted, once again, by Palencia, but this time in the company of Francisco San José and a group of students from the San Fernando School of Fine Arts. The group contained most of the artists that would later make up the

 School of Madrid 

or Young School of Madrid, is a term coined by the art dealer and bookseller Karl Buchholz and the art critic Manuel Sánchez Camargo to name the group of Spanish painters—many of them from the Second

 School of Vallecas 

(1927-1936) founded in 1927 by Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez with the purpose of renewing Spanish art in line with what was happening elsewhere in Europe. Landscape became the main subject matter of this school, albeit a highly sober landscape influenced by Hispanic primitivism, fauvist colour, a surrealist approach and cubist order. The starting point was the arid, barren land on the outskirts of Madrid in the direction of Toledo, stripped of any superfluous object and worked with economic brushwork and a palette of earthy tones. This take on landscape straddled tradition and modernism. The School of Vallecas disbanded with the outbreak of the Civil War, although it was the only school to rise from its ashes, reborn in the Second School of Vallecas (1939-1942).

—who took part in the group exhibition held in 1945 at Galería Buchholz in Madrid. This group has sometimes been considered a mere commercial project driven by art critics and gallery owners with a view to creating a market for landscape painting.

. The Prado museum was the meeting point for these artists and El Greco their major influence. Landscape continued being the motif par excellence, although executed in more realistic tones, far from the experimentation of the initial period—ultimately, a more restrained landscape offering a refuge from the horrors of war.

and the circle of artists from the legendary Galería Buchholz, where he himself exhibited his work. His Castilian landscapes, where he merges painting with his knowledge as an architect, are full of colour and movement, with an innovative use of materials instilling the support with a sense of strength, feeling, magic and fascination. In the early 1950s, he earned recognition as an artist, with his prestige reaching a peak in the 1960s.

In the company of his friend José María Labra, in 1947 he had his first exhibition at Asociación de Artistas de A Coruña, where he showed a suite of landscapes depicting highly personal everyday settings. His thick and colourist brushstroke is laden with impasto, in some cases using the palette knife. His colours gradually became colder, and his compositions more sombre, with less light and more angular forms, anticipating what would be his black period.

From 1954 to 1956 he was connected to the Atlántida magazine and was part of the artists’ group

 Los Insurgentes 

was a movement aimed at renewing art in Galicia and breaking away from the prevailing official aesthetic based on academicism and folklore. It paved the way for future avant-gardes movements.

together with Manuel Lugris, Mariano Tudela, and his inseparable friends Antonio Lago Rivera and José María Labra.

His work as an architect was behind his decision to return to his hometown in the mid 1950s. However, he soon felt out of place and withdrew into his work and his painting. That situation led to a slight depression that triggered a reflection on his art creation and a decision to develop a more personal style characterised by a dark palette, dominated by browns and blacks that he would not abandon until the 1970s, when his work returned to a more vibrant colouring. Later, in the 1980s, he embraced a more intimate and poetic tone, dominated by interiors and still lifes.