In Walk on the Beach, how is the Background to the creation of the painting discussed?
1909 was extremely successful for Sorolla. He had already been widely recognized for his paintings and received awards not only in Spain but also in France and Germany, but the year 1909 was a high point in his career. At the invitation of the American art collector Archer M. Huntington, he traveled with his wife and the two older children Maria and Joaquín at the beginning of the year to New York City. Here Huntington had previously opened the Hispanic Society of America that year and in their rooms, should Sorolla showed the first exhibition of his work in the United States. It was Sorolla's first trip across the Atlantic and later adjusting success unpredictable. On February 4, 1909, the opening of the exhibition took place; initially only a few visitors came. This changed gradually as very positive reviews appeared in the newspapers. When it closed on March 8 the exhibition had had a total of 169,000 visitors to see Sorolla's work. Encouraged by the overwhelming response, a slightly modified collection was also shown in Buffalo and Boston. During his stay in the United States Sorolla received 20 portrait commissions, including that of the just-elected US President William Howard Taft, whom he visited in the White House in Washington, D.C. In May 1909, as Sorolla left the United States, he had sold a total of 195 images - including two works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - and taken in the enormous sum of 181,760 US dollars.Back in Europe, Sorolla held initially in Paris and exhibited in art exhibition of the Société des Artistes Français, the 1903 painting Evening Sun, an image of fishermen from Valencia. About Madrid he traveled to Valencia, where he saw his daughter Elena and the rest of the family. He attended the local art exhibition Exposicion Regional and received a second award for the work exhibited there. Inspired by the success of his trip to America and the good reviews he received at the exhibitions in Paris and Valencia, he began a prolific summer. He planned in 1911 to travel again on exhibition tour in the United States and needed new paintings. He stayed until the end of September in Valencia and created in these summer months "some of his best and most spectacular beach scenes," as his biographer and granddaughter Blanca Pons-Sorolla notes. The resulting paintings of this summer beach walk provide a climax in Sorolla's career according to José Luis Alcaide.
Valencia Hispanic Society of America Archer M. Huntington William Howard Taft Société des Artistes Français Metropolitan Museum of Art Madrid