Voces del Prado

The 1980’s: The Museo del Prado and the United States

Javier Solana Madariaga, Trustee of the Museo del Prado, 2019-What's on

One of the issues that we were most interested in promoting was to ensure that the Prado should be more widely known and represented in the United States. There were two years during which the Museo del Prado practically occupied the Metropolitan Museum in New York. We staged a series of magnificent exhibitions featuring the works of Velázquez, Goya, Zurbarán and Ribera. This was a presentation in the United States – at the Metropolitan Museum in New York – of all the best works within the realm of Spanish painting. These were extraordinary years in which we established a very good relationship with the Director of the Metropolitan, who was Philippe de Montebello at the time, and with one of the individuals who handled all of the procedures, a marvellous woman called Maruk, who later pursued a very special relationship with the Prado. When she left the Metropolitan she worked for some years with us here at the Prado, when Zugaza was Director. All this meant that truly excellent relations existed between the Metropolitan’s curators and those who worked at the Prado.