This major exhibition, which opens on the day the Museo Nacional del Prado celebrates its 200th anniversary, is the result of the work undertaken for the creation of a new catalogue raisonné of Goya’s drawings, made possible through the collaborative agreement signed by the Fundación Botín and the Museo del Prado in 2014.
For the first time and in a unique and unrepeatable occasion, the exhibition brings together more than 300 of Goya’s drawings from both the Prado’s own holdings and from private and public collections world-wide. The result is a chronological survey of the artist’s work that includes drawings from every period of his career, from the Italian Sketchbook to those created in Bordeaux. In addition, the exhibition offers a modern perspective on the ideas that recur throughout Goya’s work, revealing the ongoing relevance and modernity of his thinking.
In the context of the celebration of its Bicentenary, the Museo del Prado is presenting Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana. A tale of two women painters, an exhibition which for the first time brings together the key works by two of the most notable women painters of the second half of the 16th century.
Featuring a total of 65 works, including 56 paintings, loaned from more than 20 European and American collections, the Museo del Prado is presenting a survey of the careers of these two painters, who achieved fame and renown among their contemporaries but whose artistic personalities became obscured over time.
Among the events organised to celebrate its Bicentenary, the Museo del Prado is presenting The master of paper. Spanish drawing books of the 17th to 19th centuries. The exhibition offers a reflection on the use of drawing books as an essential teaching tool for learning to draw and their evolution in Europe, including Spain.
Featuring more than 100 examples, the majority from the Prado’s own Library - which is one of the most important in this field thanks to the acquisition of Juan Bordes’s collection of drawing books in addition to the examples from the Madrazo and Cervelló libraries and other individual acquisitions - the exhibition offers a survey of these repertoires of prints based on the human figure which revolutionised the system of teaching drawing in artists’ workshops and Fine Arts academies as well as for amateurs at home.
One Cannot Watch is the title given by Andrés Rábago (Madrid, 1947), El Roto, to this collection of drawings executed specifically to be displayed at the Museo del Prado, where Solo la voluntad me sobra, an exhibition of Goya’s drawings, is running.
The title proposed by El Roto for this show is taken precisely from a drawing from Goya’s Sketchbook C, which is on view only a few metres directly below. The work of Goya, with whom Rábago shares the same caustically critical eye, is the point of departure for El Roto’s calm and collected in-depth reflection on the unchangeability of human stupidity and our society’s moral decline.
¿Cómo es el día a día de las personas que cuidan el material artístico más precioso del país? ¿Cómo lo era hace 60 años? ¿Qué retos se encontraron para transformar un Museo del siglo XIX en uno del siglo XXI? ¿Cómo cambió sus vidas la cotidianidad entre estos muros?
El Museo del Prado, en el marco de su Bicentenario, presenta un nuevo fondo documental que reúne los testimonios de trabajadores y colaboradores del Museo, bajo el título “Voces del Prado. Una historia oral”. Se suma así a otros museos de arte como el Metropolitan o el Moma de Nueva York, la National Gallery de Wahington o el V&A de Londres que, aun siendo pioneros en la compilación de sus historias orales, al no haber sido en su mayoría digitalizadas han quedado restringidas casi exclusivamente, para el uso de expertos e investigadores. El Museo del Prado ha dado un paso más, creando este archivo de entrevistas en vídeo y haciéndolo accesible a todo el público desde la web institucional. Así, cada usuario podrá buscar por palabras clave cualquier tema de su interés y obtendrá tantos resultados como voces se hayan pronunciado sobre el mismo.
En el Museo del Prado se conservan más de dos mil impresos de carácter efímero. Desde las invitaciones de exposiciones que dejan de ser útiles una vez que se ha visitado la muestra hasta las entradas de usar y tirar o las felicitaciones navideñas que se conservan mientras duran las fiestas.
Incluso se pueden considerar efímeros los carteles relacionados con acontecimientos, los folletos informativos y las postales editadas para recuerdo de los visitantes.
This exhibition project will recreate the original aspect of Room 39, known as Their Majesties’ Retiring Room. First opened in 1828, it was intended as a portrait gallery of the Bourbon Dynasty. The images on display were accompanied by still lifes, floral compositions and landscapes and by other paintings that depict events from the reigns of Charles III and Ferdinand VII. This installation will recreate the hanging of the paintings at different heights and will include some of the furnishings made for this space, including Ferdinand VII’s toilet.