111944
María Dolores Piñeiro de Wesley, née María Dolores Piñeiro García 1928
Half-length to the right, head turned looking full face to the viewer, wearing a black lace evening dress and a lime green stole around her shoulders
Oil on canvas, 87 x 62 cm (34 ¼ x 24 ½ in.)
Inscribed lower left: de László / 1928 London
Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 62: M. D. Wesley - December 23rd 1928
Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes de Tandil, Argentina
Between 1925 and 1930 María Dolores and her husband Alfredo Wesley, an Argentine landowner of English descent, were living with their family in England to see their relatives and give their children a British education. During those years they often visited Oatlands Park Hotel, near Weybridge, where Alfredo Wesley met a Hungarian, who knew the artist well.[1] The conversation developed and Alfredo expressed an interest in de László painting a portrait of his wife. A meeting with the artist ensued and a reduced fee of £500 was agreed, on account of the Hungarian friend’s introduction.
De László’s appointment book for 1928[2] indicates that he painted María Dolores Piñeiro de Wesley over two days, morning and afternoon, on 21 and 22 December. She told her children that de László talked continuously as he painted and that she greatly enjoyed their conversation, whereas her husband recalled that when he was shown the finished portrait in the artist’s studio, he bluntly said: “I don’t like it. László must have hated me for that.” [3]
María Dolores Piñeiro, known as ‘Lala’, was born in Tandil in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 9 July 1892, to Andrés Piñeiro (1858-1920)[4] and his wife Dolores ‘Lola’ García Láinez (1864-1937).[5] The eldest of ten children, she was educated in Tandil and at convent schools in Rosario and Buenos Aires. Encouraged by her parents, she showed particular interest in learning French and English. She travelled several times to Europe with her parents, embarking on the first voyage in 1908, in the company of her father, who wished to escape the rigours of the winter in Tandil after a serious illness, and her eldest brother. María Dolores enjoyed the sophisticated, cosmopolitan company of the other passengers, practising her English and acting as interpreter for her father on the British ship. She met her relatives in Galicia, celebrated her 16th birthday in Paris and her 17th in Madrid.
On 17 June 1911 she married Alfredo Enrique Wellesley Wesley,[6] a landowner of English descent, one of the pioneers of dairy farming and owner of the dairy factory “La Tandilera”. After their Catholic wedding, they had a second, Protestant service at home. They had six children: Enrique (born 1912), Ana María Rosa (born 1913), Dolores Beatriz (born 1914), Eduardo (born 1917), Andrés (born 1920) and Alfredo (born 1924). Alfredo Wellesley Wesley had many relatives living in England and the family frequently travelled there, and to the continent. During their five-year-stay in Europe from 1925, María Dolores Piñeiro and her husband returned home to Tandil three times with the two youngest children, to oversee their land in Argentina while the older ones stayed at boarding school in England.
María Dolores Piñeiro belonged to numerous social, charitable and religious organisations in Tandil. She wrote a manuscript entitled Recollections of my father’s life,[7] in which she recalls her childhood and youth. The sitter died in Buenos Aires on 19 March 1983, aged ninety.
PROVENANCE
Donated by the sitter’s children on her death to the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes de Tandil.
LITERATURE
•László, Philip de, 1928 appointment book, private collection
With our grateful thanks to members of the sitter’s family for their invaluable assistance in preparing the biography for this entry.
SMdeL 2011
[1] It is possible that the gentleman in question was the journalist Tibór Korda, who visited de László’s studio just after the present portrait was completed.
[2] László, Philip de, 1928 appointment book, op. cit.
[3] Recounted by the sitter’s youngest son.
[4] Born in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, he had travelled with his uncle to Buenos Aires at the age of fifteen. He soon settled in Tandil, a pioneer town in those days, where from humble beginnings as an assistant in a general store, he became manager and was able to save, buy land and property and live comfortably.
[5] She was also of Spanish descent. Her family had established themselves earlier than her future husband’s in Argentina. She and Andrés married in Tandil in 1891.
[6] Alfredo Wesley was born on 10 September 1877 in Gualeguaychu, Province of Entre Ríos, Argentina and died in Tandil in 1954. His parents were Henry Wellesley Wesley, who was born in England and went to Argentina in 1864, and Anne Appleyard, born in Buenos Aires, 15 August 1842.