Voces del Prado

Manuela Mena

Miguel Zugaza Miranda, Museum Director, 2002-2017

For me she’s been an open book. She’s met every challenge that I’ve given her as Curator of Goya and the 18th Century. She’s always gone beyond those specific limits of her job within the Museum’s Curatorship department. Before that she was deputy director of the Museum during some marvellous years, such as those under Alfonso Pérez Sánchez’s directorship. It was a privilege for me to appreciate her work. She’s always given much more than was asked from her in all the projects she’s taken on. For example, with exhibitions such as Manet she truly astonished us. She became a leading expert in that marvellous and key French painter.
During those difficult years in terms of our funding one of the projects that Manuela headed was an exhibition on small-format paintings from the Museum’s own collection. My idea was to structure it around the different techniques of these small works, on copper, on wood, and she took that up and transformed it into Captive beauty. That exhibition really revealed the Museo del Prado and its collections to those of us who worked there.
She began by looking through our stores, taking out lots of things, new works, and above all she succeeded in presenting a Prado different to the one we normally see. She’s truly brilliant, one of the great European intellectuals of our time.