Calle Manuel Benedito

Behind the street sign is Manuel Benedito Vives, born in Valencia in 1875 and died in Madrid in 1963. He started at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts and, still a teenager, entered the studio of Joaquín Sorolla. With his master he came to Madrid in 1896 and earned a living illustrating magazines before a grant sent him to Rome and across half of Europe. He worked in portraiture, still life, and popular types, and it was as a portraitist that he was most recognized. He inherited Sorolla’s chair of color and composition at San Fernando and chaired the board of the Museo Sorolla. From Holland he brought back more than landscapes: around 1909 he settled in Volendam for several years, and from there came many of his fisherman figures. After his death, his Madrid house-studio ended up as the Manuel Benedito Foundation, which holds much of his work and keeps his studio just as he left it, with easels and brushes in place.