Manuel Ortiz de Zárate

Manuel Ortiz de Zárate Pinto (October 9, 1887 – October 28, 1946) was a Chilean painter.

Born Manuel Revuelta Ortiz de Zárate Pinto in Como, Italy, he was the son of Chilean composer Eleodoro Ortiz de Zárate and of María Cristina Pinto Errázuriz. He came from a prominent family with his grandfather Aníbal Pinto serving as President of Chile. He was four years old when the family moved back to Chile where he went on to study painting with Pedro Lira (1845-1912) before entering the Escuela de Bellas Artes (Academy of Fine Arts) in Santiago.

At age 15 he fled home and stowed away on a ship to Italy. He studied painting in Rome, before being drawn to the burgeoning art scene in France, he made his way to Paris. There, he became part of the growing gathering of artists in the Montparnasse Quarter, making friends with Amedeo Modigliani and some of the other future greats of the art world.

Manuel Ortiz de Zárate studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, developing his modernist skills in the painting of still lifes and landscapes. Seen here, is his depiction of Notre Dame Cathedral

Together with Camilo Mori and other artists from Chile, Manuel Ortiz de Zárate helped found the Grupo Montparnasse. During World War II, he remained in France despite the German occupation. After the war, he went to the United States where he died in 1946 in Los Angeles, California. His daughter's first husband was the California abstract painter, John Ferren (1905-1970); her second husband was the Russian-born production designer Eugène Lourié (1902-1991).