Claudio Castelucho 1870-1927

Claudio Castelucho y Diana, born on 5 July 1870 in Barcelona and died on 31 October 1927 in Le Plessis-Robinson, was a Catalan–Spanish sculptor, painter, and teacher who lived and worked in France.

His father, Antonio Castelucho y Vendrell (1838–1910), was a stage designer. Under his guidance, Claudio received his first artistic training and collaborated with him on several theoretical treatises devoted to the principles of perspective. Whilst still only in his teens, he already began exhibiting his work. In 1892, after a brief period of study at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Barcelona, he moved to Paris with his family.

During his early years in France, he worked alongside his father and younger brother as a decorator, while also beginning to paint landscapes. He made his French debut at the Salon of 1897. As Spanish-themed subjects proved particularly popular, he increasingly focused his production on such motifs.

Castelucho began teaching at the Académie Colarossi and, in 1905, became one of the first instructors at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, founded by Alice Dannenberg and Martha Stettler. As a teacher, he gained considerable popularity, especially among foreign artists studying in Paris. His students included Kathleen O’Connor (Australia), Margaret Jordan Patterson, Edwin Holgate (Canada), Alice Pike Barney (United States), Adolphe Milich (Poland), and Jacques Camus.

In 1913, he held a major exhibition at the Galerie Moos, a venue dedicated to modern art in Geneva, where he presented a selection of his Spanish-themed paintings, produced following a brief visit to Spain in 1910. Apart from another short return to his homeland at the outbreak of the First World War, Castelucho remained in Paris for the rest of his life, continuing to exhibit regularly at the Salons, notably at the Salon des Indépendants in 1927.