Camacho’s Wedding

Sert produced this marvellous series of 15 panels painted in gold and grisaille on canvas with the title Camacho’s Wedding. This is the only one that directly depicts that subject, which is an episode in Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Sert used a highly individual technique that produces a sense of richness and a sumptuous finish. The panels were designed to decorate one of the gala dining rooms in the luxurious Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, which opened in 1931, the year of this commission. By that date Sert had achieved considerable international renown as a decorative painter and had produced some highly successful private commissions of this type. When this group of panels was unveiled, American critics praised the artist’s skills both with regard to the subject chosen and its realisation, comparing his approach to that of the great Renaissance masters. No other painter, it was said at the time, had Sert’s ability to “endow the wall with the opulence of his forms”. The series became so popular that the dining room was known as the “Sert Salon”. The canvases were taken down in the 1970s and sent to Spain. They are now installed in the Exhibition Space of Colección Santander in Ciudad Grupo Santander in Boadilla del Monte (Madrid).

In this panel Sert reveals all his artistic skills through a composition that incorporates a series of varied groups within the overall composition, juxtaposed against each other and involved in different actions, all in a notably balanced manner. As is habitual in his work he uses a fantastical architectural setting in the manner of Piranesi as the setting for figures that move with syncopated gestures as if on a stage set. The apparent austerity of the colour, limited to gold and black tones, is counterbalanced by the red of the curtain and by Don Quixote’s cloak. Despite the busy, crowded feel of the scene, it conveys a sense of rhythm and space through the lateral openings that prolong the pictorial space and hence the viewer’s gaze. This was one of Sert’s most notable pictorial skills and he was regularly praised for his ability to adapt his work to any type of architectural setting.