20th century

Handsome and proud, Pepilla sits with one arm around her daughter's shoulders and her other hand on her hip. Both mother and daughter gaze directly out at the viewer. Just as the mother's gesture tenderly protects yet presents her daughter, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida expressed tenderness in his portraits of Spanish people, particularly women and children.

With his typical spontaneous, broad brushwork, Sorolla reveled in the effects of the warm Mediterranean light and air on the colors and patterns in the women's costumes. He preferred to paint even portraits outdoors, trying to achieve a spontaneous effect. "[N]o matter how much labor you may have expended on the canvas, the result should look as if it had all been done with ease and at a sitting," he said in 1909.

Although sometimes associated with the Impressionist and Symbolists who painted at the same time, Sorolla remained independent of a specific art movement. At the same time, he created some of the most modern paintings of the early 20th century. A 1909 solo show in New York featured 356 of his paintings and introduced him to an American audience. Touted as “the Spanish painter of sunlight and color” by the New York Times, 169,000 visitors attended the show in about a month. He was soon given a commission for a series of murals celebrating traditional life in Spain for the Hispanic Society of America, which he painted between 1911 and 1919. Milwaukee was at the forefront of Sorolla’s popularity in America. “Drawing in the Sand” was a gift to the Milwaukee Art Institute in 1911 from its early president, Samuel O. Buckner (Catherine Sawinski, Assistant Curator of European Art)