Ramón Perez de Ayala

Ramón Pérez de Ayala, painted in 1920 and held at the Hispanic Society of America, depicts the Asturian novelist and poet who was one of the leading literary figures of early twentieth-century Spain. Pérez de Ayala's novels — satirical, formally experimental, deeply engaged with the tensions of modern Spanish life — made him a major presence in the literary culture of the period. By 1920, Sorolla was in the final years of his active career — he would suffer a debilitating stroke in 1920 — and this portrait stands among the last works he contributed to the Hispanic Society series. The portrait of a writer seventeen years younger than Sorolla captures a figure at the height of his literary powers.

The 1920 portrait demonstrates Sorolla's mature portrait technique at full command: the face is painted with the directness and warmth of his best work, the background kept broad and neutral, the light source used to model the features without theatrical drama. Any decline in physical capacity from the approaching illness is not visible in the confident brushwork.