Emilio grew up in Avilés, a port city in Asturias. Asturias is a province of
Spain on the north coast between Galicia and Cantabria. The family lived in Sabugo,
an old mariners' neighborhood of Avilés. Their home was on the Calle Carreño Miranda,
a street named after a 17th century artist from Avilés who was a painter for the
Spanish court of King Carlos II.
Soportales (arcaded walkways) in an older
section of the city of
Avilés
Asturias, 1984
Emilio's father's family were seafarers. His father, José Fernández González,
was a sailor and his paternal grandfather father, Anselmo Fernández, was the port
master of Avilés.
There may have been a tradition of artistic careers in the family of Emilio's
mother, Genera Alvarez Vuilla. Emilio's maternal grandfather, Adriano Alvarez,
was a painter, as was Adriano, one of Emilio's younger brothers. Another brother,
Anselmo, was a sculptor. When he was only nine years old, Emilio was already working
on a scaffold, helping paint murals on the ceiling of a church in Avilés
(or possibly the cathedral in Oviedo). One family story says that Emilio was working
with an uncle, but he may have been helping his grandfather.
In Avilés Emilio was a member of la Sociedad de Albarñiles y Pintores
de El Avance, Sociedad de Obreros del Ramo de Construcción, a union for painters
and bricklayers.
Courtship, Marriage, and Emigration
As a young man, Emilio walked up to San Cristóbal hill from the city of Avilés
to a dance hall and bar run by José Antonio Menéndez Alvarez in
La Sablera, or perhaps San Cristóbal de Entreviñas . This was a farming
community on a hill to the northwest of the city. We know from a painting that
José Antonio played the gaita (Asturian bagpipes), so he may have
provided the dance music himself. It was here that Emilio met his future bride,
Aurora, one of José Antonio's daughters.
José Antonio Menéndez Alvarez
1848-1935
Father of Aurora Menéndez Conde
& Emilio's father-in-law
He is holding an Asturian gaita
(bagpipe). His clothing
illustrates the traditional Asturian
montera picona (cap), vest, &
faja (the sash or belt at his waist).
San Cristóbal, Avilés, Asturias
date unknown, 1920s?
The day Emilio and Aurora Menéndez Conde got married, January 7, 1914, they
also boarded a ship for Havana, Cuba. Her father, José Antonio, refused
to go to the wedding or see them off at the Asturian port of Gijón, because he
didn't want his daughter to leave. Aurora's mother, Maria Conde Alonso, was more understanding.
Maria Conde Alonso
1854-1944
Mother of Aurora
& Emilio's mother-in-law
Her dark dress illustrates one
typical style for Asturian women's clothing.
San Cristóbal, Avilés, Asturias
date unknown, 1920s?
Emilio, like many of his era, emigrated to avoid the Spanish military draft.
After three years in Havana, on April 24, 1917, Emilio, Aurora, and their two
young daughters, Maria Louisa and Concepción, left aboard The Mexico, bound
for the United States. Five days later they arrived at Ellis Island.
Aurora Menéndez Conde &
Emilio Fernández Alvarez
with daughter Maria Louisa
Havana, Cuba, c 1916
Although they eventually settled in Anmoore (also known as Grasselli), they
may have moved first to Spelter (also known as Zeising). Harrison County, West
Virginia already had sizable Asturian immigrant community living in and around
the towns of Anmoore, Spelter, and North View. Many of these Asturians had been
recruited to work in the zinc smelting industry because they held similar jobs
in Asturias. There were zinc factories in many locations in the United States,
including at least four in West Virginia: first in Anmoore and later in Spelter, North View, and Moundsville.
Asturian emigration was a common phenomena in this era. Emilio had three brothers
in the new world, César, Anselmo, and Adriano. Only Emilio and César stayed for
the rest of their lives. Anselmo and Adriano returned to Asturias before the Spanish
Civil War. Both were killed in the war. Two of Aurora's brothers also moved to
Cuba, where they ran a store. They later returned to Asturias as "Indianos," people
who moved for a few years to the New World to earn a better income and then returned
to Spain with their new "wealth." Aurora's sister, Lola (Manuela), lived close
by in Anmoore for a few years, but returned to Asturias to be closer to the rest
of her family.
José Antonio was one of Emilio's
favorite nephews
Lola Menéndez Conde (sister of
Aurora) & her husband Juaco
Martínez (a sailor) with their
first son José Antonio. They
lived in Anmoore, West Virginia
a few years before returning to Avilés in 1920.
Clarksburg, WV, 1916
A Deaf Lover of Languages and Books
His daughter, Dora said "in the first bad flu epidemic of 1918 Pop got the
flu and came down with pneumonia. He must have been about 22 years old. He was
in the old Catholic hospital (St. Mary's) in Clarksburg, and they worked hard to save him.
A lot of people died then. That's when he lost his hearing, I think."
"He would go to NY to get a new hearing aid every year. He'd pack a suitcase
full of books and head off; he never packed any clothes. He'd buy clothes in NY
and then when he was ready to return to WV he'd ship his new clothes home. I think
he just loved to read that much. He kept his books in a cabinet he kept locked,
probably so we kids couldn't read his books. Many of them were falling apart,
he had read them so much. There were books on anatomy, foreign languages, art.
If he wasn't working, he was reading. I remember often seeing him with a book
in his hand."
"Pop learned to speak about seven languages, partly from studying them
by reading books. He spoke Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, Italian, and Yiddish. He
learned them so he could speak with his customers. He only painted [as an interior
decorator] for those who had the money to pay him, and he must have figured it
made sense to be able to communicate with them!"
El Pintor
Among the Spanish community in West Virginia, Emilio was known as "El Pintor."
His mother, Genera Alvarez Vuilla, wrote letters to him addressed to "Emilio Fernández,
'Pintor', Box 126, Anmoore, W.Va." He is also written about as "El Pintor" in
Gavin Gonzalez' memoir about the Asturian-American immigrant experience, Pinnick
Kinnick Hill. (Gonzalez changed the names of the people; Emilio is written
about as "Augustin Pelaez.")
Emilio was best known as a painter of religious works for churches in New York,
New Jersey, West Virginia, and Avilés (Asturias, Spain). His business card for
Bayonne said "Emil Fernandez, Painter, Artistical Decorating, Churches and
Theaters, Signs Painted." Especially in WV, though, much of his income came
from interior decoration and painting for the businesses and well-to-do of Clarksburg
and Bridgeport.
Art Zoller Wagner &
Honnie Wagner restoring
a painting by Emilio
Fernández, "Christ
Knocking at Heart's
Door," Trinity United
Methodist Church,
Brushy Fork,
West Virginia, 1993
His son, Chris Fernandez, enjoyed retelling this story: "Once I was helping
him on a job. I used to go along to hold one end of the chalk-line. Sometimes
he'd even let me snap it, but not often. Pop was painting a baptismal scene. He
did a lot of them. One or two men came in the back and watched briefly while he
was painting. I overheard one say that (somebody) was going to be upset when he
saw that Jesus was being sprinkled by John the Baptist rather than immersed. When
they left I told Pop, 'Wrong method, Pop.' He had it changed when they returned
with the other man in 45 minutes. I heard the new man say, 'That looks okay to
me, same method we use!' Probably made the first guys feel silly! Pop just kept
working, didn't pay attention to them."
As Chris' story illustrates, Emilio painted very quickly and suggestively,
rather than bothering with painstaking detail. This is clearly the case with the
image below, a simple Venetian night scene. This may have been a study Emilio
painted in preparation for a dramatic set. We know that he often painted sets
for the Bridgeport High School plays. The date and the Bayonne frame shop label
on the back of the frame suggest that he may have painted set backgrounds while
living in Bayonne, NJ, too.
Venetian Night Scene
Emilio Fernández Alvarez
oil on paper, 1929?
A Pre-Modernist Artist
Emilio did not think about art in the way his more famous contemporaries (consider,
for example, John Stewart Curry, Paul Delvaux, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, or Paul
Klee--all of whom were also born in 1897). Perhaps because of his childhood experience
in traditional religious art or because his art was supporting a large family,
Emilio did not seem concerned about being "original." Instead, his practices were
much closer to those of pre-modern artists who created for the church: he repeated
many of the same images, and he freely borrowed imagery from other artists. He
collected and reinterpreted images of both lowbrow and highbrow art.
For example, Emilio reinterpreted the well-known 1877 painting of "Doña Juana
la Loca" by Francisco Pradilla Ortiz (1848-1921). Pradilla's original is now located
in El Prado, Madrid, Spain. Given the extremely similar composition and details,
Emilio undoubtedly had a black and white print of it; only the colors are markedly
different. The colors in the original present a much more somber mood than Emilio's
version.
Francisco Pradilla Ortiz
Doña Juana la Loca
oil on canvas
1877, El Prado
Emilio's original source
Emilio Fernández
Doña Juana la Loca
oil on canvas
1939?
Emilio's copy &
reinterpretation
According to Emilio's son, Chris, "Pop painted eight to ten paintings of a
doctor seated in a chair, his chin on his hands, looking at a sick child. He'd
change the heads to look like a doctor he wanted to give the painting to. He sold
a few of them, one to a mortuary in Bayonne, NJ, but most he gave away."
Chris recalled that "Sunday mornings [Emilio would] get up early and go painting
in the country. We kids could usually tell where he'd been by just looking at
the 3 or 4 sketches or paintings he'd bring home."
Emilio did experiment with Impressionism, particularly with his landscapes,
but much of his work is more traditional. The closest he came to participating
in an art movement of his contemporaries was when he created paintings of the
town of Anmoore, WV, and port in Bayonne, NJ. These paintings could easily have
been works by the Ash Can School, which was begun by Robert Henri around the turn
of the Twentieth Century. Many of the Ash Can School painters were originally
illustrators; in a sense Emilio's training was as a religious art illustrator.
Like Emilio, they tended to paint quickly, leaving obvious brushstrokes. Their
subject matter was urban scenes of the poor and disenfranchised, similar to Emilio's
drab small town and port scenes.
Choosing Populism Over Fame
Emilio wasn't concerned about achieving fame with his art, but he did share
his art with the community in creative ways. Concha said that her father painted
a realistic scene with flowers on the wall of the house at the front porch. People
would walk or drive by to enjoy the illusion.
Similarly, Chris recalled how his father "would put a light over a painting
that had something to do with the season, like a scene of the crucifixion, so
it could be seen from outside through the front window. Pop just loved painting.
He didn't want to be bothered with showing or selling his works. He gave most
of them away. Once some women in Clarksburg tried to arrange a show of his works,
but he didn't want to get involved. I tried to convince him to work with the women
in the art club, but he thought they just wanted to learn his painting secrets
from him. He wouldn't have anything to do with them, didn't want to share his
knowledge."
The Last Supper
Emilio Fernández Alvarez
oil on canvas
One of the religious
paintings Emilio displayed
in his home.
After his children left home, he may have changed his mind, because at least
one of his paintings still has a tag on the back, indicating that he exhibited
it with the Clarksburg group.
His daughter, Concha, also remembered that townspeople would knock on the door
and ask to see the paintings El Pintor had hanging in his house. Once
some nuns from Anmoore's Catholic church had heard about the paintings, so they
visited and asked to see them. Emilio's wife, Aurora, showed them around. The
nuns asked why one of the paintings was covered by a cloth. Aurora told them they
could raise the cloth and see for themselves. Reportedly, Emilio enjoyed hearing
about the nuns' surprise when they uncovered a nude.
Moving to Bayonne to Find Work
Emilio moved to Bayonne, New Jersey, on many occasions because of the better
opportunities for work there. His oldest child, Maria Louisa, remembered that
he went there many winters to find work. A letter from Maria Louisa, written after
she and Concha had moved to New Jersey, says that they had lined up some painting
jobs for their father.
Emilio (seated at easel)
worked with several other
men in a decorating business
called "The Three Stars" in
Bayonne, NJ. This photo may
show "Kamesky" (front) &
the two policemen (standing).
The longest stay in Bayonne was 1929(?)-31(?), when the entire family moved
there. The children still remember Bayonne fondly, having enjoyed the vibrant
Spanish community and the city parks. Emilio continued his painting and decorating
work there. Maria Louisa remembered that he worked with a man named "Kamesky."
Concha remembers that her dad created a business, "The Three Stars," with two
police officers. Aurora took care of their books and office work. His business
card indicates that he also worked on his own decorating churches and theaters,
and painting signs.
The family left Bayonne for Anmoore because a friend in Anmoore warned them
that their house, which had been rented to another family, was being used by bootleggers
to store moonshine. Three of the children later returned to New Jersey permanently.
Emilio's business card for Bayonne, NJ
Later Life
His daughter, Dora remembered that "Pop worked long hours. He'd get up
at 4 or 5 am at daylight, work, come home for lunch, then go back to work until
midnight some days. There were a few slow periods, but not many, and he worked
hard most of his life. He stopped working only when his heart made stopping necessary.
He died of congestive heart failure, and I wonder if that wasn't caused by overexertion
as a young man when he played soccer." He and two of his brothers were known
in the Spanish community as exceptional soccer players.
Dora also recalled that "after we had all left home, Pop had a car wreck in
which he injured his right arm. I remember seeing him hold his right arm with
his left arm so he could paint. He went to physical therapy for years to try to
regain use of that arm, but it didn't seem to help."
Emilio Fernández
standing on the porch
of his home in Anmoore,
West Virginia before
retiring to California.
October 21, 1962
In these later years he often visited his children, especially those living
near New York City. He loved visiting the museums and taking long walks in the
city. Emilio continued living in Anmoore until he could no longer work. When he
then left to live with his sons in California, many of his paintings disappeared
from his home and are still missing.
