In The Boxer Solana moved away from his habitual approach and depicted a figure – a male nude - and a type of event – a boxing match - that do not appear in any of his writings. He contrasts the winning boxer and his fallen rival with the anonymous audience that silently watches the scene.

This is an ambitious painting, partly due to its size. It was almost certainly painted for presentation at the National Fine Arts Exhibition of 1926. It brought Solana a considerable amount of attention in the press and from art critics but was not awarded a prize.

Solana offers an idealised depiction of Antonio Ruiz, a boxer from Vallecas (Madrid) to whom Ramón Gómez de la Serna dedicated a short book when Ruiz became European Featherweight Champion in a match held at the Circo Price in Madrid in October 1925.

Solana’s opinion is summed up by the sentence that appears on a sheet of paper held by a member of the audience seated in the first row, which reads Circo de boxeo [Boxing Circus]. These were words subsequently used by the painter Eduardo Arroyo in his description of Solana’s painting: “It is the circus of life and of death in the darkness, far from the light of other people’s fiestas. An execution bathed in shadows. Circus and boxing.”

The artist structured the composition by splitting the depiction of the event into two parallel planes: the silent crowd, which is only lightly defined; and the ring with the principal figure. He is shown standing, looking straight out towards the viewer and seemingly remote from the scene itself. Light and shade, the triumph of the winner and the loser on the floor.

María José Salazar