Pastel Dancer Gaetano De Gennaro Circa 1930

Subject: Red-haired dancer in motion. Support: Pencil, chalk, charcoal, and pastel. Dimensions with mat: 57 x 40 cm. Dimensions of the drawing: 42 x 26 cm. Period: 1930s. Condition: As found, with foxing. Signed Gaetano de Gennaro and countersigned on a label on the back. Gaetano de Gennaro was born in Naples in 1890 and died in São Paulo, Brazil in 1959. He was a painter, sculptor, and teacher. He studied with his uncle, Luís Barone, in Naples. He then went to Paris to study with Alberto Besnard, whose influence is evident in his work. He studied sculpture in Grenoble with Urban Basset and at the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Nice. During his life, he lived in Italy, Switzerland, France, England, Ireland, and Brazil. During World War II, De Gennaro lived in Ireland from 1940 to 1946. He was essentially a refugee and spent most of his time there, where he painted numerous portraits, primarily pastels, of prominent Irish figures such as Sean Keating and the operatic soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan, whose portrait hangs in the Gaiety Theatre. His portrait of Douglas Hyde, Ireland's first president, hangs in Áras an Uachtaráin, the President's residence. Some of his pastel portraits were included in the Royal Hibernian Academy's exclusive exhibition in April 1943, where Thomas MacGreevy compared his work to that of early 20th-century artists Philip de László and Jean Boldini. In 1942, a monograph of his works, Gaetano de Gennaro: Pastels and Paintings, was published, and the following year, his works were exhibited in a solo exhibition at the Shelbourne Hotel. He left Ireland for Brazil around 1946. The Brazilian painter Ernesto Lia, who was also a pastelist like De Gennaro, studied in his studio in São Paulo. He worked there until his death in 1959. De Gennaro's works are held in several Irish public collections, such as the Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, and the National Gallery of Ireland, both in Dublin.