Goya y Lucientes, Francisco Jose de

Born at Fuendetodos, Saragossa, Spain. Apprenticed to an artist in Saragossa, then became a popular genre painter. Deafened in middle life, supposedly from chill and fevers from repairing a broken carriage axle in midwinter; learned to speechread and learned Spanish Sign Language. Famous for his portraits of Spanish nobility and prints of "Disasters of War". Official painter to the Spanish royal family for about 4 decades. Spent his last years in France in voluntary exile, dying at Bordeaux.