Lafuente Ferrari, Enrique

Date born: 1898

Place Born: Madrid, Spain

Date died: 1985

Place died: Ceredilla, Spain

Historian of Spanish art, particularly Goya. Lafuente was a disciple of Manuel Gómez Moreno (q.v.). He was a professor at the Universidad Complutense y de la Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernandoin Madrid. His Breve historia de la pintura española (Brief History of Spanish Painting) appeared in 1934. In 1935 he published de La pintura española del s XVII. During the years of Franco's Spain, Lafuente Ferrari translated the groundbreaking work of Werner Wiesbach (q.v.) on the Baroque, Barock als Kunst der Gegenreformation into Spanish, supplying an introduciton. De estudios dedicados a Velázquez were issued in 1943 and 1944. After World War II, he completed his study on Goya in 1948 followed by Zuloaga in 1950. A book on methodological issues, La fundamentación y los problemas de la historia del arte (The merits and problems of art history) was published in 1951.

In 1973 the Goya specialist Fred Licht (q.v.) described Lafuente Ferrari as the doyen of Spanish art history. 1985 saw the death of three emenent Spanish-subject art historians, Harold Wethey (q.v.), José Gudiol Ricart (q.v.), and Lafuente Ferrari.

Home Country:  Spain

Sources:   Goya in Perspective. Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973, p. 170; Marías, Julián. "Evocacion de Enrique Lafuente Ferrari." and Calvo Serraller, Francisco. "Don Enrique Lafuente Ferrari, Historiador del arte." in García de la Rasilla, Isabel. Calvo Serraller, Francisco, eds. Goya: nuevas visiones: homenaje a Enrique Lafuente Ferrari. Madrid: Amigos del Museo del Prado, 1987, pp. 15-9, 21-31; [obituary:] Archivo Espanol de Arte 58 (October/December 1985): 464-466.

Bibliography: [complete bibliography on wrtings on Goya:] Bernardez Carmen. "Relación bibliográfica comentada de la obra del Profesor D. Enrique Lafuente Ferrari sobre Francisco de Goya." in García de la Rasilla, Isabel. Calvo Serraller, Francisco, eds. Goya: nuevas visiones: homenaje a Enrique Lafuente Ferrari. Madrid: Amigos del Museo del Prado, 1987, pp. 32-37; Breve historia de la pintura española. Madrid: Unión poligráfica, s.a., 1934; and Carey, J.R. and MacLaren, Neil. Velazquez. New York, Oxford University Press, 1943; Goya: El dos de mayo y Los fusilamientos. Barcelona: Editorial Juventud, 1946; Goya: The Frescos in San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid. New York: Skira, 1955; Velázquez: Estudio biográfico y crítico. Geneva: Skira, 1960, English, Velazquez: Biographical and Critical Study. Lausanne: Skira/Cleveland: World Publishing, 1960; Goya, his Complete Etchings, Aquatints, and Lithographs. New York: Abrams, 1962; El Greco: the Expressionism of his Final Years. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1975.