Exhibition

From El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces from the Museo del Prado

Museo de Arte de Ponce. Ponce, Puerto Rico 3/25/2012 - 7/16/2012

The exhibition From El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces from the Museo del Prado, presents in Ponce a selection of works by some of the greatest 16th- to 19th-century painters, as the result of a collaborative agreement involving the exchange of collections and the development of joint projects between the Museo de Arte de Ponce and the Museo Nacional del Prado. This exhibition is curated by Cheryl Hartup and Pablo Pérez d’Ors, curators at the MAP, and coordinated by Gabriele Finaldi, Associate Director of Curatorship and Research at the Museo del Prado, and Agustín Arteaga, Director of the MAP.To be seen for the first time in Puerto Rico, From El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces from the Museo del Prado brings together 24 paintings by some of the greatest names in western art including Titian, El Greco, Ribera, Rubens, Velázquez, Zurbarán and Goya. These works from the Prado’s collection reflect the evolution of Spanish painting over four centuries in an exhibition that also focuses on the artistic traditions and ideological concerns that defined the Spanish School in the 17th century.The works are grouped thematically in the exhibition. The first room shows religious compositions including Saint John the Evangelist by El Greco and The Holy Family with Saint Anne by Rubens. The next section looks at portraiture under the Spanish Habsburgs and includes The Cardinal Infante Fernando de Austria by Van Dyck and The Buffoon Don Diego de Acedo, “El Primo”by Velázquez. This is followed by a section on still lifes, including Basket and Boxes of Sweetmeats by Juan van der Hamen, and one on Bourbon portraits including Self-portrait of the Artist in his Studio by Luis Paret, who lived and worked in Puerto Rico, and Portrait of Ferdinand VII before a Military Camp by Goya. Paret’s portrait is displayed here alongside his Self-portrait in Puerto Rican peasant dress, which has been specially loaned by the Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan. Overall, the selection of works in the exhibition can be interestingly compared to those in the MAP’s own collection, which has a representative group by 15th- to 19th-century Spanish painters including Goya, Ribera and Sorolla.

RDF

Co-organized by:

Exhibition

Museo de Arte de Ponce

The Museo de Arte de Ponce (MAP)

The Museo de Arte de Ponce was founded in 1959 by Luis A. Ferré (1904-2003), a leading figure in the economic, political and cultural history of Puerto Rico and a passionate devotee of music and the arts.

The Museum became an important centre for European culture in the Caribbean and Central America. Its initial collection, which offered a wide-ranging vision of Western art, was exhibited by schools (Italian, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, English, French, North American and Puerto Rican), with the European works comprising the central axis of the collection.

In 1963 Luis Ferré acquired two of the highlights in the MAP’s collection of British art, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon by Edward Burne-Jones, a mural size interpretation of Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, and Flaming June by Frederic Lord Leighton, the latter a pictorial tribute to beauty and the most famous painting in the MAP’s collection.

The MAP’s collection numbers around 3,800 works from the 14th to the 21st centuries, including Italian and Spanish Baroque, English Pre-Raphaelite and contemporary Latin American paintings.

With its renovation and expansion project now complete, the Museo de Arte de Ponce is reopening with the present exhibition, From El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces from the Museo del Prado.