Voces del Prado

I Was There

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

I’m talking about my career between the ages of 27 and 53, the moment when you reach the summit of your professional maturity. Naturally. The Museo del Prado has given me practically everything I am as a historian, and professionally it has given me everything in a clear and completely evident manner. I have enjoyed experiences that, like all professional experiences, took place in a series of circumstances that will never be repeated again. They were no better and no worse than the experiences I might enjoy from now on, just different.
I can see that many of my experiences were defining moments in history. Some of them really were. The “Velázquez” Exhibition? I was there. Guernica? Rafael Moneo? I was there too. These really are things that you bring with you. But what I really do believe - perhaps in order to answer precisely what it is that you bring away with you from the Museum - is that you feel a responsibility to ensure that everything you do is done with honour and a sense of quality. The Museo del Prado is demanding; you can’t do things in a mediocre way. Have they been mediocre? I don’t know. You might develop a project in your mind that is interesting, but maybe it’s not for the Prado. Your experimental idea may be extremely interesting, but it’s for outside the Museum.
You have an enormous sense of institutional responsibility, not because everyone is watching you, but because you’re at an emblematic Spanish cultural institution and everybody is looking to see how it progresses. In this respect, you have your role to play and you have to rise to the challenge. I must not act in my role as José Luis Díez, because that’s what I write my articles for; at the Museum, I must be the Head of the nineteenth century art collections at the Museo del Prado. And this is something that comes even before you yourself. I have always said that your own tastes are something you keep at home. Members of the public who are interested are going to read or interpret these collections according to the proposal that you have designed. This creates a great sense of responsibility.