Rafael de Penagos

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”La mujer Penagos”: The Penagos Woman

Rafael de Penagos (1889-1954) was a Spanish illustrator and painter. In Spain, he was a practitioner of the art deco style.

Life

Penagos studied at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando), where he studied under Emilio Sala and Antonio Muñoz Degrain, two major illustrators of the magazine Blanco y Negro. From the beginning of his time at the academy, Penagos had focused on both drawing and painting, but he soon demonstrated enormous skill in the art of drawing. He immersed himself in the cultural life of Madrid, and participated assiduously at the tertulias of Valle-Inclán at the Nuevo Café de Levante.

In 1913, he received a scholarship to study in Paris and London. On his return to Spain, he began to produce a large number of posters and ads for various firms. At the same time, he worked as an illustrator for the main magazines of the time: Nuevo Mundo, La Esfera and Blanco y Negro, and for periodicals such as El Cuento Semanal, La Novela Corta and Prometeo.

In 1925, he received the most prestigious prize an artist could receive for his time: the gold medal at the International Exposition of Decorative Arts in París.

Depiction of a modern, urban woman.

In 1926, he drew the poster for the film by Florián Rey called Agustina de Aragón. During the Spanish Civil War, Penagos lived in Valencia, serving as chair of the department of Illustration at the Instituto Obrero de Valencia. He was one of the major poster designers of the Republican side, but most of the magazines he he had worked for had by this time already disappeared.

In 1948 he went into exile to Chile and Argentina. In 1953 he returned to Spain, and died a year later in Madrid, where he had served as the chair of the department of Illustration at the Instituto de Bachillerato Cervantes.

Work

Poster by Penagos

Penagos’ art deco illustrations represented a new Spanish society that was urban and modern. He created a type of woman known as the "mujer Penagos": daring, well-dressed, sophisticated, and provocative. The “mujer Penagos” was also slender, with narrow hips, smoked cigarettes, played sophisticated sports, and loved anything exotic.

The most important collection of his work, consisting of 246 works, is owned by the Fundación MAPFRE. His son, also named Rafael de Penagos, became a well-known voiceover actor.

External links

• Digitalized Works of Rafael de Penagos in the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica of the Biblioteca Nacional de España.
• Fundación MAPFRE Collection