Lot 118: Jaime Valls (Cuban 1883-1955)

Jaime Valls (Cuban 1883-1955)
La rumba
(also known as 'Bailando rumba')
signed and dated 'J. VALLS, 1928' (upper right)
oil on canvas
37½ x 26 3/8 in. (95.2 x 67 cm.)
Painted in 1928.

A. Alonso, Havana Deco, New York, W. W. Norton and Ltd., 2007, p. 164 (illustrated in color).

Vázquez Díaz, "Redescubrimiento de Jaime Valls," Revolución y Cultura, 5 January 2005, p. 27-32 (illustrated in color).

J. Veigas, C. Vives, A.V. Nodal, V. Garzón, D. Montes de Oca, Memoria: Cuban Art of the 20th Century, Los Angeles, California/International Arts Foundation, 2002, p. 354 (illustrated in color).

Avelina Alcalde collection, Havana.
Acquired from the above.
Private collection, Madrid.

We are grateful to the Fundación Arte Cubano for its assistance in cataloguing this work.

Renowned for his graphic oeuvre which included illustrations (both satirical in nature and for commercial products) for numerous publications such as El Chato Cómico (1905) and Ataja! (1908-1909), Jaime Valls, celebrated popular Cuban culture, especially Afro-Cuban themes, in a thoroughly modern fashion. Art Historian Ramón Vázquez credits him as an innovator and a leading force in the vanguardia criolla. The sensual figures in Rumba or Ritmo de rumba, pulsate with the rhythms of the rumba cubana as they sway to the beat of every musical note being played.