Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida was a Spanish painter whose style was a variant of Impressionism. His best works, painted in the open air, vividly portray the sunny seacoast of Valencia. He is famous of dexterous representation of the people and landscapes under the bright sunlight of his native land and sunlit water.
Sorolla was from a poor family and was orphaned at age two - his parents probably died from cholera. Joaquin with his sister were thereafter cared for by their maternal aunt and uncle. Luckily, his artistic talents were quite visible and he received his initial art education at the age of 9 in his native town.
Sorolla displayed an early talent and was admitted to the Academy of San Carlos in Valencia at age 15. After further studies in Madrid, where he vigorously studied master paintings in the Museo del Prado we went to Rome and Paris. Then he returned to Valencia. Initially, he painted historical and social realist works, one of which, Another Marguerite (1892), was his earliest success. The painting was awarded a gold medal at the National Exhibition in Madrid, then first prize at the Chicago International.
A great turning point in Sorolla's career was marked by Sad Inheritance (1899). This extremely large canvas depicted crippled children bathing at the sea in Valencia, under the supervision of a monk. The polio epidemic that struck some years earlier the land of Valencia. The painting earned Sorolla his greatest official recognition, the Grand Prix and a medal of honor at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, and the medal of honor at the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1901. After this painting Sorolla never returned to a theme of such overt social consciousness.
He suffered a stroke in 1920, which left him paralyzed on his entire left side and unable to work. He died three years later at the age of 60 in his home.