Voces del Prado

The Experience of Being Assistant Director

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

I don’t think I was appointed solely because of my own merits; it was simply that the curator of the nineteenth century collections had to assume a series of duties that no other curator of any other collection could take on. Given that you were based in a separate building, you had to take on the management of the building itself: issues relating to supervision, security, staff … there was no formal reason why you had to do it, but you simply didn’t have any choice. I also had to organise a small team, with a restorer and curator exclusively under my supervision. We had a small team or department, a building and a series of collections. We were just like a small museum.
I’d had to go through a series of management experiences that other curators hadn’t had to pass through. And I think it was this profile that the Director, Miguel Zugaza, thought might be useful for what he wanted to achieve through the Assistant Directorship, which was attached to the Sub-Department for Conservation and Research. I love challenges, and I get really bored if things are too easy. And I really like anything that involves organisation.
I’ll always be grateful to Miguel Zugaza for thinking of me for this task. The truth is that I learned a lot and it was great to be involved in that period, which was so full of hope and enthusiasm. A new museum was being created, the museum that we believed the Prado should be. It wasn’t simply a question of housing some marvellous collections. These works would be promoted by an excellent team equipped with good resources and based on the idea of raising the profile of these collections. I served as Assistant Director for four years and then I decided that my responsibilities had been fulfilled and we had entered a new period. That’s why I presented my resignation and I returned to the collections. The next thing I hoped for constituted another huge challenge, namely the inauguration of the Rafael Moneo Project and the grand unveiling of the whole nineteenth century art collection. And I think this is something that Miguel Zugaza could see very clearly.