Manuel Ortiz de Zárate (1887-1946)

Manuel Revuelta Ortiz de Zárate was born on October 9, 1887 in Como (Italy), when his father, the Chilean composer Eleodoro Ortiz de Zárate, studied in Milan. In 1893, after the death of his mother, the rest of the family returned to Chile, where his father remarried. His grandfather, Aniíbal Pinto, had been president of Chile. Manuel first took painting lessons from Pedro Lira (1845-1912) and then studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes (=Academy of Fine Arts) in Santiago. Manuel left Chili in 1902 and after a stay in Argentina went to Europe. In Rome he copied the old masters and he made several trips to Paris. In 1904 Manuel met Amedeo Modigliani in Italy who told him about Cézanne and artists living in Paris.

Manuel met Hedwige Piechowska in Italy, who finished the academy of fine arts in Warsaw, and was studying in Florence at that time. They moved to Paris together where they settled in the Montparnasse district. On August 9, 1911 their daughter Laure was born in Montpellier followed in 1916 by a son. Manuel visited the Paris école des Beaux-Arts (=Academy of Fine Arts) and was friends with the artists who had Café La Rotonde as a meeting point. On photographs, which Jean Cocteau made on August 12, 1916, Manuel Ortiz de Zárate is to be seen along with Max Jacob, Pablo Picasso, Pâquerette, Henri-Pierre Roché, Marie Vassilieff, Modigliani and Moïse Kisling. In the picture on the left we see from left to right: Ortiz, Kisling, Pâquerette and Pablo Picasso.

A short period Ortiz painted on a cubism way and he had a contract with Léonce Rosenberg. Probably in 1916 the family Ortiz moved to 8 Rue de la Grande-Chaumière to the old studio of Gauguin. In July 1917 Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne came to live above them. Together with Kisling Manuel Ortiz de Zárate organized the first exhibition of Lyre et Palette in the studio of their friend, the Swiss painter Emile Lejeune, from November 19 to December 5, 1916. In the spacious studio on Rue Huyghens 6 in the Montparnasse district works by Kisling, Matisse, Modigliani, Ortiz de Zárate, Picasso and Sculptures nègre were exhibited. In the catalog poems were included by Cocteau and Cendrars.

In 1923, Manuel Ortiz de Zárate took part in the first exhibition of the Grupo Montparnasse of the Chilean artists in Santiago (Chile). Other members were Luis Vargas Rosas (1897-1976), Enriqueta (Henriette) Petit (1894-1893), Julio Ortiz de Zárate (1885-1946) and José Perotti (1898-1956). In 1925 a second exhibition was kept, where other painters also took part in.

After the Second World War Ortiz went to the United States where he died in Los Angeles on October 28, 1946. His daughter Laure married abstract painter John Ferren (1905-1970) and after her divorce in 1938 she married in 1941 the Russian designer Eugène Lourié (1902-1991), who was known as an art director for movies. The couple moved to the United States in 1941. On January 13, 2001 Laure died in Portland (Oregon, USA). Under the name 'Laure de Zarate' she worked as costume designer for a large number of movies between 1937 and 1969.

Works with influence of cubism

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