Voces del Prado

The great Velázquez exhibition

Manuel Montero Eugenia, Head of the Art Handling Staff, 1986-What's on

I remember, for example, when we finished the installation of the "Velázquez" exhibition, the famous one that was organised in 1990. I remember that we were organising a football tournament with staff from the Museum and we had eight teams and I remember that we stayed on working because we had to work in the afternoons to hang the exhibition, then we would rush off when we’d finished otherwise we wouldn’t have got to play. I wasn’t really fully aware at the time of what installing that exhibition meant. I don’t think I was until we saw the number of people who visited over those two-and-a-half months. If I remember correctly the exhibition opened in January 1990 and I think it finished around March, so it was on for about two months. Every day there were more people queueing and by the time it got towards the end of the exhibition there were incredible queues. I do fondly remember when I finished installing that exhibition as at that point I didn’t grasp the dimension of what I’d done. Well, not me, but the team I was in.