José Zamora (1889-1971) - El Príncipe quiso ser princesa

TECHNICAL DATA Author: José de Zamora (José Zamora Vaxeras, “Pepito Zamora”). Madrid, 1889 - Sitges (Barcelona), 1971. Title: The Prince wanted to be a princess. Year: 1920. Technique: black ink on paper. Original drawing, unique piece. Sheet size: 337 x 215 mm (33.7 x 21.5 cm). With frame: 51 cm x 39. Presentation: framed, with dark gray passe-partout and gray molding with a silver edge, under glass. Scene: Couple with a feather headdress. Signature: Monogram and date in ink on the right, at hand height: “J.Z. 20” [VERIFY: reading of the monogram with a magnifier] Condition: Good condition for its age. Paper slightly yellowed, with some light moisture stains and rust stains in the lower half of the sheet. No visible tears. [VERIFY: check outside the frame and on the back] Provenance: private collection, Madrid. [VERIFY: how and when acquired] THE WORK Two half-body nude figures. On the left, a woman with an extremely tall feather headdress, long earrings and a bead necklace ending in a tassel, with her hand on her hip. On the right, an androgynous-featured figure with a smooth turban that surrounds them with the arm and places their hand on their chest. The rest of the sheet is blank: Zamora concentrates all the drawing in the upper third. It is part of a group of ink drawings made by Zamora in 1920 under the title “The Prince wanted to be a princess.” They are offered on Catawiki separately, in independent lots. THE AUTHOR The most famous fashion designer of the Art Deco era, Erté, recalled José de Zamora with emotion in his memoirs, Things I Remember (1975). They had met in Paris, in Paul Poiret’s workshop, the couturier to whom the modern concept of haute couture is attributed, when neither of them had a name yet. José Zamora Vaxeras, who signed as José de Zamora and whom all Madrid called Pepito Zamora, was born in Madrid in 1889 and died in Sitges (Barcelona) in 1971. He studied with the painter Eduardo Chicharro. From 1910 he published drawings in Nuevo Mundo and La Esfera, the two most prestigious illustrated magazines of the time. When World War I broke out in 1914 he returned to Spain, and in 1918, in San Sebastián, Sergei Diaghilev and Anna Pavlova commissioned him to design costumes for their ballets. That same year he opened a fashion house on Núñez de Balboa Street in Madrid, where he dressed actresses such as Catalina Bárcena and Gloria Laguna. He was part of Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s circle at the Pombo café, and Gómez de la Serna portrayed him in La sagrada cripta de Pombo. He illustrated stories for Editorial Calleja. He also wrote: his tale Princesas de aquelarre appeared in 1915 in La Novela de Bolsillo, and Editorial Renacimiento reissued it in 2012 with a prologue by Luis Antonio de Villena. In 1919 he premiered at the Petit Casino in Madrid the play Sueños de opio, written as a collaboration with Tono and Tomás Pellicer. In 1921 he drew the costume designs for Farsa y licencia de la reina castiza, by Valle-Inclán, for the production Cipriano Rivas Cherif was preparing, which never opened. Thirteen of those costume designs, in wash over colored card, are preserved in the Biblioteca Regional de Madrid. Zamora’s Parisian career is the least known in Spain and the longest. He was a costume designer for the Casino de Paris in 1920 and 1921, the Concert Mayol between 1922 and 1927, the Palace between 1923 and 1928, the Moulin Rouge between 1924 and 1927, and the Folies Bergère between 1926 and 1929. After World War II he returned to work for the Casino de Paris until 1961 and for the Théâtre Mogador between 1947 and 1957. The playwright Francisco Nieva, who arrived in Paris after the war, wrote that the posters for the Casino de Paris signed by Zamora were everywhere and that he could be compared to Erté. That comparison falls short. In Zamora’s ink drawings from 1920, his line is more nervous and freer than Erté’s in the same years, and that is why it ages better. His style was much imitated in his lifetime: he left a mark on Antonio Juez, on Julio Antonio, and on the scenic designer Víctor María Cortezo. His work is in public collections on both sides of the Atlantic. The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota (Florida, United States) houses in the Tibbals Circus Collection a series of circus costume designs painted by Zamora between 1968 and 1970. The Biblioteca Regional de Madrid holds the figurines of La reina castiza. In 2022, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, the Sitges Museums dedicated in the Museu de Maricel the exhibition “Pepito Zamora, a magazine artist,” and in 2025 the Biblioteca Regional de Madrid programmed a lecture on his work by researcher Isabel Alba Nieva. His original figurines for the Parisian music-hall of the twenties circulate today among specialist dealers in Paris, and the ink drawings from 1920, like this one, are the most sought-after part of his Spanish graphic production.

Estimación:300€

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