Voces del Prado

There is life after the Prado

Carmen Garrido Pérez, Head of the Technical Office, 1982-2012

I am a tenacious, methodical worker. There were Germans who would tell me that they could only work with me. I appreciated the compliment. A have been in contact with so many people in the Museum and from outside…
Do I miss anything after having left the Museum? I have needed a couple of years of absolute disconnection because the Museum absorbs you completely, it is such absorbing work and suddenly one day you say, "It's over, I need to live another life." And of course there is life after the Prado.
I entered gradually and I left just as gradually because, although I officially retired in 2012, I continued to come at my convenience and also at the convenience of those who worked with me, to be able to finish the book on El Greco.
I've never liked to leave work unfinished and we had started with El Greco and did not want to go away without finishing it. I've been very fortunate in life, I have to admit it.
I also must say that I've worked hard. My family and the Museum, those are the two things that have marked me most in my lifetime. It couldn't be otherwise after so many years, actually it's been a full 40 years. It's impossible not to feel strongly about it. In this gradual disconnection that I've carried out, now I am able to come to the Museum having shed all the negative aspects. I am a positive person and even in the worst moments I look for the positives. If there's a catastrophe, I look at the good things and what remains is good, that's a fact.