Heading Soccer Study

Ángel Zárraga. Heading Soccer Study. Dated 1926.  Durango, Mexico.

Technique: Ink on Paper. 

Size: 20 3/4 x 18 1/2 inches. Framed and Acrylic Plexiglass.

Angel Zarraga born in Durango in 1886 and died in Cuernavaca in 1946. Mexican painter and poet little known in his country because he spent more than half of his life in Europe, where he carried out studies at the School of Fine Arts in Paris and also at the Royal Academy of Brussels. Zárraga became fascinated with football, as a way to study and explore the human body and its movement. He completed numerous portraits of players, shown in glorified stances, in the heat of the match, training or unwinding after a game. The artist depicted men and women alike – the latter might have had something to do with Zárraga falling in love with Jeanette Ivanoff, a successful, Russian-born professional player.