Voces del Prado

Marvellous Collections and Professionals of International Renown

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

The Museum I encountered was the museum that could be seen from the outside at that time, a museum with some truly marvellous collections. There were professionals here who worked with very scarce resources and who made their careers through their own endeavour, involving themselves personally in order to ensure that the Museo del Prado that was seen from the outside continued to maintain its prestigious appeal. This was achieved with very few resources and through individual endeavour; there was no team effort, no structured approach or prioritising, and there were no plans of action. And, above all, there was no sense of what the Museum should be or the image it should project. Or the purpose it was meant to serve at the time.
I think that the heads of management at the time, both the Director and the Assistant Director, who was Manuela Mena, had a clear idea of the direction the Museum need to take. But, maybe, the person who had to provide the resources or the means to ensure that the Museum was able to do justice to its collections, wasn’t quite so clear on this point. That person wasn’t aware that the Museum’s structure and funding really needed to match the prestige and value of its collections and he wasn’t conscious of exactly what Spanish society at the time, around 1988, would begin to demand from museums in general, and the Prado in particular. Up until that time, the Museo del Prado had always served as a grand repository of huge and important works, marvels you would go and see because they were always on show, although there was nothing else.