Herra, Adolfo de

DISPLAYED ON OUR WEBSITE: ‘Adolfo de Herra Paintings‘

There is a very good reason for the mystery and the lack of information about the Spanish Symbolist artist Adolfo de Herra – He wished it to be so! Though he was passionate about painting and about his art he preferred to hide his work and Adolfo de Herra is a pseudonym. To the world he was a successful jeweller with a business in Madrid. At the time of his death there was no public knowledge of his work. His reputation has grown since the release of his art by his family around 1960. The watercolours that we have on our website were made at the height of the Symbolist period in the 1890s. The smaller of the two watercolours ‘Venus’ (1890) shows the distinct influence of the loosely worked watercolours of the ‘father’ of Symbolist painting Gustave Moreau (1826-1898). The larger watercolour ‘Les Prêtresses’ (The Priestesses) is more finely detailed in rich colours with an exotic orientalist influence.