Daniel Sabater (Salabert)

1888-1951

Daniel Sabater Salabert was born in Valencia Spain on December 13, 1888. He began working in a fan designer's studio before traveling to Madrid, where he was exposed to the work of Spanish masters such as Velazquez, Goya and Ribera.

Early in his career he painted military themes, but when he moved to Paris in 1912, where he remained about a year, he was commissioned to paint religious compositions for the convent church of St Vincent-de-Paul, which he executed in luminous colors.

On his return to Spain his canvases featured macabre scenes peopled by witches and monsters and his color palette darkened and took on a sickly blue-green tinge. Beset by family problems and affairs of the heart, Sabater went to the Americas, where he traveled extensively in both the north and south, not returning to Spain until 1923.

Sabater exhibited his work at the Sociedad Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1910 and also exhibited in Uruguay and Brazil.

He died on December 27, 1951 in Barcelona.

Daniel Sabater was a Spanish artist who was formed in Barcelona and later settled in Paris before returning to Spain around 1950. He cultivated a style within symbolist academicism and was known as "the painter of witches" due to his favorite subjects. His work was characterized by loose and controlled craftsmanship with expressive sketchiness and brilliant chromatism. Sabater's solo exhibition at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1953 was notable. He is represented in the Museo de Bellas Artes San Pío V in Valencia.