Manuel Ortiz de Zarate

Manuel Ortiz de Zarate, (October 9, 1887 – October 28, 1946), was a Chilean painter.ManuelOrtiz de Zarate (1) & friendsBorn Manuel Revuelta Ortiz de Zarate in Como, Italy, he was the son of Chilean composer Eleodoro Ortiz de Zarate. He was four years old when the family moved back to Chile where he went on to study painting with Pedro Lira (1845-1912) before entering the Escuela de Bellas Artes (Academy of Fine Arts) in Santiago.

Drawn to the burgeoning art scene in France, in 1904 he sailed to Marseille then made his way to Paris. There, he became part of the growing gathering of artists in the Montparnasse Quarter, making friends with Amedeo Modigliani and some of the other future greats of the art world. In the 1915 photograph seen here, left to right, is: Manuel Ortiz de Zarate, Henri-Pierre Roche (in uniform), Marie Vassilieff, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso.

Notre-Dame de Paris by ManuelOrtiz de ZarateManuel Ortiz de Zarate studied at the ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, developing his modernist skills in the painting of still lifes and lanscapes. Seen here, is his depiction of Notre Dame Cathedral Together with Camilo Mori and other artists from Chile, Manuel Ortiz de Zarate helped found the Grupo Montparnasse. During World War II, he remained in France despite the German occupation. After the war, he went to the United States where he died in 1946 in Los Angeles, California. His daughter's first husband was the California abstract painter, John Ferren (1905-1970); her second husband was the Russian-born production designer Eugene Lourie (1902-1991).