Head of the Museum and founding member of The Friends of The Prado Museum Foundation

Francisco Calvo Serraller, Museum Director, 1993-1994

I am Francisco Calvo Serraller, Professor of Art History at the Complutense University. My most direct and committed link to the Museo del Prado was the period when I headed the Museum, between autumn 1993 and spring 1994. Seven months or two hundred days. Then I resigned.
But apart from this direct connection, I had already been closely associated with the Prado, because I was a founding member of the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation in 1980. This was a very strange experience, because there were no Friends Associations at Spanish museums at that time. It was a pioneering initiative. And when you pioneer something, you pay a certain price, until the thing works, obviously. So I have enjoyed forty marvelous years supporting the Prado, without the anxiety and responsibility of heading the Museum, which is very hard.