The closing of the Sorolla Museum which will undergo an ambitious rehabilitation and expansion project, leaves the people of Madrid orphaned of the works of the Valencian painter until 2026. Or not quite? A new thematic exhibition on the “master of light and color” lands from this Thursday, October 17, at the Royal Collections Gallery. The great novelty: a work by the Valencian artist that was thought to be lost and had not been shown since 1890 will be exhibited.
Sorolla’s works that see the light again in Madrid
Boulevard de Paris ( 1890) is a large format work that is a window to the urban Paris of the late nineteenth century. A costumbrist delight that represents that stamp of cafe and street of the city of light.
But it is not the only “special” case that we will find in the exhibition: La Giralda, Seville ( which he painted in 1908) is another of those works that have not been exhibited since the painter’s death. In addition, four works are shown for the first time in our country: Portrait of the Mexican Tiple Esperanza Iris, Arch and Gate of Santa Maria, Children bathing or Evening Sun. And three others that land for the first time in Madrid: Sierra Nevada from the cemetery, Granada (1909), Before bathing. Valencia (1909) and Lucrecia Arana (1920).
In all, the exhibition Sorolla, one hundred years of modernity, will bring together 77 works by the painter on loan from various museums, foundations and private collections (among them, the aforementioned Sorolla Museum, the Hispanic Society of America, the Prado Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias, the Pedro Masaveu Collection, the Musée d’Orsay, the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, among others).
Thus, this orphanage will be compensated with a great exhibition in which will be present great recognized works of Sorolla’s artistic career, but also unknown jewels that had never before been shown to the public.
The exhibition will remain in the temporary exhibition hall of the Royal Collections Gallery (located on the third floor) until February 2025. It will officially close the commemoration of the centenary of the Valencian painter’s death.
As a curiosity, the exhibition is curated by Sorolla’s great-granddaughter (and one of the leading exponents in the study of the artist’s work), Blanca Pons-Sorolla, Consuelo Luca de Tena (former director of the Sorolla Museum) and Enrique Varela Agüí (current director of the museum).