Jacinto Octavio Picón
1889. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
Jacinto Octavio Picón (Madrid, 8 September 1852–Madrid, 19 November 1923), son of the journalist and magistrate Felipe Picón and Octavia Bouchet (a French lady), studied law between 1869 and 1873. He was first an administrative officer in the Overseas Ministry during the Republic and later literary correspondent for El Imparcial. He then moved to Paris and later to Algeria. He excelled in short stories and novels, becoming well-known from his first work, Lázaro (1882), followed by La hijastra del amor (1884), Juan Vulgar (1895), El enemigo (1887), La honrada (1890) and Dulce y sabrosa (1891). These works gave him a reputation among naturalist writers. In addition, he was also a fine arts critic in El Correo. In 1900, he joined the Real Academia Española, of which he was appointed perpetual librarian in 1914, and in 1902, he joined the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando with a speech on The Nude in Art. As a proponent of republican ideas, he was a member of parliament for Madrid in 1903. In his later years, he was vice-president of the Board of Trustees of the Museo del Prado and secretary of the Board of National Iconography.
