Voces del Prado

The Opportune Time and Place: Madrid, European Capital of Culture

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

Two things coincided. In 1992 the Government sought to promote the Reina Sofía National Art Centre Museum (MNCARS) with the incorporation of the Guernica into its permanent collection, with everything that that entailed. And, at the same time, Madrid was chosen as European Capital of Culture. By that time, Alfonso Pérez Sánchez had been relieved of his position as Director of the Museo del Prado. The new Director was Felipe Garín, but Pérez Sánchez continued to be responsible for important projects for Madrid’s year as European Capital of Culture. He’d been entrusted with a project that was known as “Madrid pintado” (“Madrid Painted”). It was a normal and quite simple exhibition on different views of Madrid as seen through a series of paintings. He thought I could be responsible for the layout. It was just a normal exhibition, one that had little importance. But perhaps that’s what the boldness of youth is for.
We had a lunch at the former Palace of El Marqués de Casa Torres with Pablo López de Osaba, who was the head of the “Madrid: European Capital of Culture” Project. And, at the end, Pablo López had the boldness to say, “if you have any other project I mind, I’d be delighted to hear about it”. Without even thinking about it, I said: “yes, I have a project: the history painting of Spain in the nineteenth century”. He was fascinated. López de Osaba clearly saw that this was an opportunity. When we left, Pérez Sánchez said to me, “only you know what you’ve got yourself into”. It consisted of an exhibition of 52 paintings, all of which measured an average of three by five metres. Furthermore, the paintings required a restoration campaign that lasted nine months and involved 21 restorers working full-time. The exhibition also needed an extensive venue, namely the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (MEAC), because the paintings didn’t fit anywhere else.
But if I look back at my most satisfying moments as an art historian here at the Museo del Prado, then one of them was undoubtedly the moment when they unrolled The Lovers of Teruel [by Antonio Muñoz Degrain] and The Execution by Firing Squad of Torrijos [by Antonio Gisbert]. I said to myself, “that’s it, I’ve done it”. That’s what I felt the moment the roll began to unfurl and I could identify figures between the gauze covering the painting, figures I had only ever seen in books. It’s a painting that depicts a true cinemascope scene, something truly incredible and fascinating. I think that was the first and decisive debut of the nineteenth century painting collections at the Museo del Prado.