Manuel García y Rodríguez

"The Water Carriers", 19th Century Oil on Canvas by Manuel García y Rodríguez

Circa 1890

Manuel García y Rodríguez (Sevilla, 1863 — 6 de mayo de 1925) was a Spanish painter. He went through the seminary and the provincial institute, where he obtained a bachelor's degree, and received his first painting lessons from José de la Vega Marrugal and his brothers Pedro and Francisco, belonging to a family of Sevillian artists, costumbrista and romantic painting , but of a detailed and descriptive realism, and linked to the newly created Free Academy of Fine Arts in Seville. He later trained at the School of Fine Arts in Seville, where he was a disciple of Eduardo Cano and Manuel Wssel de Guimbarda, and connected with other young Sevillian artists such as Sánchez Perrier, Fernando Tirado, Virgilio Mattoni, José Arpa or Rico Cejudo. Throughout his life he participated several times in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts (Spain), obtaining in 1887 a bronze medal with the work The banks of the Guadalquivir and in 1890 and 1895 the second medal. His painting was directed to the landscape and custom scenes that he practiced almost exclusively throughout his career. Interested in this pictorial genre he traveled to Madrid, where he came into contact with the pleinairist circle of Professor Carlos de Haes, although he dedicated most of his pictorial work to Seville, the Guadalquivir and its surroundings, actively participating in the neighboring landscape school locality of Alcalá de Guadaíra. He collaborated as an illustrator for the weekly Blanco y Negro. Manuel García always closely followed the work of Emilio Sánchez Perrier, also from Seville and eight years older than him. Their close relationship and friendship are known, and they even shared displacements to paint outdoors in the town of Alcalá de Guadaíra. His work can be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, in the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Malaga where works such as Sanlucar de Barrameda, Sanlucar de Barrameda Beach of 1895-1900, Fishing 1907 and Landscape of the Jara of 1910 are preserved, and in various private collections.