Voces del Prado

José de la Fuente: colleague and friend

George Bisacca, Restorer, 1985-What's on

They told me that there was someone in the Carpentry Shop, which is in the basement of the Museum, someone there that could help me. That was my first meeting with José de la Fuente. I explained to him various things I needed to have done, and even though he didn’t speak one word of English, and of course I didn’t speak Spanish, but somehow, we understood each other very well. I could see right away that he was very capable; he had had excellent training in woodworking. He was obviously well qualified. I explained to John Brealey, and to the director, Pérez Sánchez at the time, that José really should be brought up into the Restoration Studio, and work exclusively there, rather than being in the Carpentry Shop. He was doing excellent work on the paintings, and I felt that he really should be given the title of painting restorer. This took quite a bit of time for this to pass through the administration. Manuela Mena, the subdirectora at the time, was very helpful in this, in getting this title for him, but it was a very difficult road. That began my kind of collaboration with José.
Over all this years, 30 years now, that José and I work together on special projects here at the Prado. José has been in many trips to New York. We have consulted together on many things worldwide. In Vienna, we worked on Rubens’ Stormy Landscape, Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath. In London for the Courtauld we were at the National Gallery working on a large Boticelli’s Trinity. Many things like this. And then, for the Getty Panel Paintings Initiative we have consulted on the Ghent Altarpiece, and projects in Brussels, New York, Cracow, Vienna …. We have quite a history. And of course, along the way we became really close friends. So, it was a great good fortune for the Museum to be able to just bring him in from their own staff.