Julio Romero de Torres was the son of Rafael Romero Barros, a painter and curator of what was then called the Museum of Painting in Cordoba. He would be marked by family life which revolved around his father’s studio, the classrooms of the School of Fine Arts and Music Conservatory and the galleries of the museum, located in the same grounds as the family home. This indisputably conditioned his future and was the backdrop to his first steps as a painter.

At the age of ten he began studying music and painting and was only fourteen and fifteen when he received prizes in the competitions organised by the Provincial School and the Athenaeum.

He carried on studying painting and, like his siblings, was deeply influenced by his father’s teachings. As he became increasingly involved in the cultural scene of Cordoba and closer to that of Madrid, his life continued to be underpinned by two fundamental pillars: his family and painting.

In 1895 he secured his first artistic success withLook How Pretty She Was!, which was also his first success in Madrid. But 1899 would be one of the most important years in his life, as he married Francisca Pellicer and was granted an ancillary post at the Provincial School of Fine Arts, where he finally became a lecturer in colour, drawing and copying after the antique and from live models. He continued his teaching career years later in Madrid as a lecturer in ancient drawing and drapery at the Special School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving.

During the turn of the century he was connected with the academy, the Athenaeum and the Cordoba Economic Society of Friends of the Country and attended literary and artistic gatherings. He was involved in restoring the coffered ceilings of Cordoba Mosque and returned to these conservation tasks carried out on Cordoba’s rich heritage years later in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts.

In 1903 he made a decisive trip to Morocco. Dating from these travels are interesting sketches of urban landscapes and human types. The following year he made a new trip, this time to Paris, London and the Netherlands, visiting Italy in 1908.

From this point onwards his painting underwent major changes and he took part regularly in the National Exhibitions, achieving great success in those of 1895, 1904, 1908 and 1915, although some of his works were also rejected on the grounds of immorality in 1906, and again in 1910.

After he settled in Madrid, the first decade of the century would be decisive for his work, which was enriched conceptually by his relationship with the foremost intellectuals of Madrid whose company he frequented at the gathering at the Café Nuevo Levante with Valle-Inclán and the one presided by Gómez de la Serna at the Café Pombo, which was attended by the most prestigious writers and artists of the capital.

So began a period of tributes, decorations and appointments during which he also produced interesting works that were shown in various exhibitions in Barcelona, Bilbao and London with a resounding success that culminated in 1922 in the decisive exhibition at the Galería Witcomb in Buenos Aires, where he lived for several months.

Romero de Torres divided his time and work between Madrid and Cordoba, where he was visited by Alfonso XIII. Around this time he took part as an actor in various films such as La malcasada, made in 1926 and directed by Francisco Gómez Hidalgo, and Julio Romero de Torres, a documentary biography of the master that was completed by Julián Torremocha years after the master’s death.

At the end of 1929, following his success at the Ibero-American Exhibition in Seville, his health worsened and he returned to Cordoba, where he died only months later on 10 May 1930.

There are two essential periods in his painting. The first spans from his formative years to approximately 1908, when he evolved from the Romantic tradition learned from his father and reflected in Cabeza de árabe (Head of an Arab) of 1889 and several Landscapes, and from the influence of the social painting of his brother Raphael as found in Conciencia tranquila (Clear Conscience) of 1897, a theme that culminated in 1906 in his controversial paintings of prostitutes entitled Vividoras del amor.

Around 1900 his palette became intensely luminous, as in The Nap, Andalusian Laziness and Bendición Sánchez. He also produced paintings connected with the modern movement such as Horas de angustias (Hours of Anguish) and Lectura (Reading) – also known as Mujer tendida leyendo un libro (Reclining Woman Reading a Book) – which evidence his contact with Catalan painting that is also found in some of his poster designs.