Francisco de Goya

Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker, often called the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Born at Fuendetodos in Aragon, he worked in Madrid and became a court painter in 1786 and Primer Pintor de Cámara in 1799. He painted Charles IV and His Family and the daring Naked Maja.

A severe illness in 1793 left him deaf, and his work grew darker; the Caprichos etchings dwell on madness, witches and corruption. He stayed in Madrid through Napoleon's 1807 invasion, and his Disasters of War prints and the 1814 painting The Third of May 1808 show war without heroism.

From 1819, living in isolation at the Quinta del Sordo, he painted the Black Paintings. In 1824 he left Spain for Bordeaux, where he died in 1828 aged 82. His work recorded his era's upheavals and influenced major later painters.