The Museo del Prado is displaying Bust of a Woman by Picasso, on deposit for five years from American Friends of the Prado Museum.

Painted in 1943, Bust of a Woman offers an outstanding example of Picasso’s response to the violence of World War II. In many of the artist’s female images of this period he distorted the features in a radical manner. In this example, painted in a single day on 7 October 1943, he employed rapid, extremely confident brushstrokes to achieve this effect. The resonance of the background tones and the emphatic presence of the female form reflect the artist’s roots in Spanish culture and his profound knowledge of the country’s pictorial tradition.

The decision to hang the painting in Room 9B, which is devoted to El Greco, and in the company of The Buffoon Calabacillas by Velázquez, is intended to reveal the significant influence of the great tradition of Spanish painting on Picasso.

One of the great masterpieces of European art, The Spinners by Velázquez, is presented with a new frame that hides the later 18th century additions to the canvas from view and allows the visitor to contemplate the composition as conceived by Velazquez.

The work is integrated into an innovative installation specially designed for the masterpiece and incorporates new technical features for conservation.

The recovery of Velazquez’s composition marks the first action of the “Reframing the Prado” project which aims to develop new solutions and adequate framing features for the best presentation of the Prado’s collection.

“Reframing the Prado” is supported by American Friends of the Prado Museum thanks to the generous sponsorship of the American Express Foundation.

Los itinerarios que tendrán lugar en los meses de julio y agosto serán "Del pintor al mito: Velázquez", "Historia del Museo del Prado y sus edificios, "El legado de Carmen Sánchez. La última lección.

En los meses de julio y agosto continuamos con las visitas dialogadas: Diversidad y disidencia, Por definición y  Nuevas masculinidades.

Las obras que se explicaran en Una obra, un artista serán Alegoría de la Justicia y la Pazen julio y La defensa de Zaragoza, de José Álvarez Cubero, en agosto.

“La obra invitada”, programa patrocinado por la Fundación Amigos Museo del Prado, presenta el Biombo de la Conquista de México, pieza capital del arte virreinal.

Este biombo refleja el ideario de las élites criollas de la capital de la Nueva España y visualiza su relación con una Monarquía Hispánica a la que debían fidelidad política y el origen de su fe, pero también el orgullo y la singularidad de una realidad americana que cristalizaría más de un siglo después en el proceso de independencia.

Expuesta en la sala 16 A del edificio Villanueva hasta el próximo 26 de septiembre, esta excepcional pieza pasará a formar parte de la exposición temporal Tornaviaje, una apuesta del Prado por abrir sus colecciones a nuevas geografías.

The bequest made by Carmen Sánchez García (1929-2016) to the Museo del Prado has allowed for the acquisition of numerous paintings that reflect her desire to leave much of her estate “for the acquisition and restoration of paintings in particular”. This exhibition will pay tribute to this benefactor of the Museum by presenting a selection of the acquisitions made possible by her generosity.

A teacher by profession, Carmen Sánchez García was associated with the Colegio Nervión from almost the outset of her career. A Friend of the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado since 2003, she was a regular participant in the Museum’s courses and educational activities.

El 19 de noviembre de 1819 el rey Fernando VII inauguraba el Museo Real de Pinturas. Dos siglos después, el actual Museo Nacional del Prado, inaugura una nueva sala en su exposición permanente, que presenta un recorrido por la historia de la institución. Esta muestra toma como hilo conductor la evolución de su arquitectura, y, a la vez, reflexiona sobre las vicisitudes históricas y políticas que han transformado el museo en la institución pública de relevancia internacional que es hoy, así como sobre su imagen pública, su personal, sus publicaciones e investigaciones y sus principales exposiciones y actividades.

El recorrido, organizado en nueve secciones cronológicas, se inicia a finales del siglo XVIII, con el proyecto de Juan de Villanueva para sede de la Academia de Ciencias Naturales y Gabinete de Historia Natural, y finaliza con el proyecto de rehabilitación del Salón de Reinos de Foster & Rubio, que culminará el Campus Prado.

Among the initiatives to celebrate the Museum’s Bicentenary, and with the title “Audiovisual memory of the Museo del Prado”, a new documentary archive brings together the audiovisual history of the Museum – its buildings and collections – for the first time through film, NODO news bulletins and television. This selection of audiovisual material, which will come to number more than 400 items over the course of 2019, offers a survey of more than 100 years of images of the Prado.

In collaboration with the Filmoteca and Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), the archive starts with 300 titles, including a previously unseen documentary entitled “Introduction to the Museo del Prado” (1985) by Basilio Martín Patino, the RTVE series “Looking at a painting” with contributions from figures such as Alberti, Cela and Umbral, and full-length cinema films with actors such as Rita Hayworth, Rex Harrison, Tony Leblanc, Aurora Bautista and Concha Velasco, directed by Ramón Masats, Antonio Mercero, Jacinto Molina, Orson Welles and George Marshall, among others.

Spoken history through the experience of the people who have devoted their day to day to the institution.

Thanks to the support of Telefónica as a Benefactor Sponsor of the Visitor Services and other Users improvement programme, the Museo del Prado is now the first Spanish museum and one of the few in the world to make its historical archive available online. By doing so it is leading the way in free access to information by making it possible to consult both its collection of works of art and the contents of its archive online.

This initiative offers nearly 12,000 digitalised documents, including: the Museum’s ground plan and elevation; the list of the paintings on display in the Sala Francesa in 1887; the appointment of Pablo Picasso as the Prado’s director in 1936; and the personal archives of the Madrazo family, of Valentín Carderera, one of the leading figures in the Spanish 19^th-century art world, and of Salvador Viniegra, deputy director of the Museum between 1890 and 1898.