Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes was born in Fuendetodos but moved to Saragossa where dad was a gilder. Goya became a painter of cathedral frescoes after being apprenticed to a local artist at 14.
Between 1770 and 1790 Francisco was painting the sort of portraits that would have pouted out from the pages of the 18th century Spanish version of 'Hello' magazine had it existed. He was sought after by the puffed-up and pompous, eventually becoming the pet painting spaniel of King Charles III and making no end of mazuma into the bargain. However, after an illness left him deaf, he went through a radical mood swing and began knocking out savagely satirical stuff that would have sat nicely in 'Private Eye' had it existed.
Matters weren't helped when Napoleon and several thousand pals yomped into Spain and began massacring Spanish folk droite, gauche and centre, prompting Francisco to become a one-man CNN and create eye-witness accounts of the horrors.
After the reinstatement of King Ferdy, Francisco was invited onto the popular game show known as 'Face The Inquisition', where the miserability asked him what he was doing painting naughty Naked Majas (and did ladies <i>really</i> look like that without their clothes on).
By 1819, embittered and worn out (but not that worn out), Francisco (72) was living with his 'companion' (30) and painting the walls of his home, 'The Country House Of The Deaf man' (named for a previous occupant) with his 'black' paintings, featuring charming scenes involving social workers pretending to be witches and vertically enhanced folk biting the heads off their own children.
In 1824 Francisco forgave the Frogs, buzzed off to Bordeaux, did lithographs, then died.
