What is it about?
In the words of early 20th-century writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna, José Cabrero y Mons (1871–1954) is the central figure in the novela del Arte. However, he remains the only unknown artist in José Gutiérrez Solana’s iconic painting La tertulia del café de Pombo, one of the most significant works in the Museo Reina Sofía.
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Why is it important?
This monograph delves into his fascinating artistic life, uncovering previously unpublished details, including rare books from his personal library, correspondence with fellow artists, his artistic work, and his remarkable collection of modern art, featuring works by Puvis de Chavannes, Solana, Rodin, Carrière, Iturrino and De Groux, among others.
Perspectives
This biographical and artistic outline of Cabrero y Mons’s life and achievements is probably the explanation of why Gómez de la Serna places him to his right at that meeting in Madrid and why he is immortalised in Gutiérrez Solana’s painting La Tertulia del Café de Pombo (A Meeting of Friends at the Café de Pombo). Cabrero had the rare privilege of encountering and becoming cognisant with a succession of trends that sought to redefine the concept of art and its manifestations in fluctuating literary and art worlds. He was the right man at the right time and at the right place. He was a sharp-eyed observer of art, as his friend Ramón Gómez de la Serna described him, and he participated in the development of modernity in Belgium, France, and Spain. The discreet symbolist, José Cabrero y Mons, mysterious and enigmatic, was that fortunate creature who lived out the most exceptional novel, the art novel.
PhD Lola Cabrero
Universidad de Cantabria
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This page is a summary of: El simbolista discreto José Cabrero y Mons, March 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004721470.
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