Voces del Prado

2009: Total Sorolla

José Luis Díez García, Head of the Department of Conservation of 19th Century Painting, 1988-2013

The “Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923)” Exhibition was a challenge for many reasons, but the main goal was to sweep away the clichés. An exhibition on Sorolla, the painter of the sea, always works. But this wasn’t the mission of the Museo del Prado. Any museum could do things that the Prado would never do. The Museo del Prado should do things that only it can do. And, in this respect, it had to stage a Sorolla Exhibition that only it could stage. What could the Museo del Prado do that others cannot? At the very least, it could take advantage of the fact that the panels of the cycle known as Vision of Spain were in Spain, the paintings that Huntington commissioned Sorolla to create for the Hispanic Society of New York. The Director, Miguel Zugaza, was very skilful in the way in which he obtained the financing required for a definitive exhibition on Sorolla at the Museo del Prado.
Fortunately, the new exhibition halls designed by Rafael Moneo granted us a marvellous opportunity, one that no other space could have given us. What opportunity was that? Well, we could clearly distinguish Vision of Spain, which was a specific project that Sorolla carried out for an American eye, from the rest of Sorolla’s work, which was created for other eyes. And the Museo del Prado had the power to bring those works that no other institution would have been able to attract. We brought all the works that Javier Barón and I decided simply had to be part of a Sorolla anthology.
Sorolla at the Prado posed the following question to its visitors: “Do you want to discover all of the facets of Sorolla’s work in one go?” For example, one of the aspects that we emphasised was Sorolla as a portrait artist; up until that time, his portrait work had been considered a secondary or domestic activity, something he did to earn money and attract clients. However, in Sorolla the portrait artist we can see the great interpreter of Velázquez, if you like. It’s impossible to understand the quality of Sorolla’s portraits without understanding that he had looked at Velázquez straight in the eye and had refused to imitate him. Instead, he assimilated what he had learned and was capable of transforming Velázquez’s influence into something new, a unique and personal language. The Museum had to show this, and I believe it did.