The closure of the Sorolla Museum which will undergo an ambitious rehabilitation and expansion project, leaves the people of Madrid orphaned of the Valencian painter’s works until 2026. Or not quite? A thematic exhibition on the “master of light and color” is located in the Royal Collections Gallery. The big news: it has just extended its dates until next April 20 and, to celebrate this extension, three more works are added to the exhibition.
We are talking about Comida en la barca, a painting from the 1890s, as well as two works that the artist painted on the beach of Valencia in the summer of 1916 (the latter two belonging to private collections and, therefore, rarely shown to the public). In addition to the three new additions, this exhibition includes one that was thought to be lost and had not been shown since 1890.
Sorolla’s works that see the light of day 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 this is not the only “special” case we 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 brings 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 Fine Arts Museum of Asturias, the Pedro Masaveu Collection, the Musée d’Orsay, the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, among others).
Thus, this orphanage is compensated with a great exhibition in which there are great recognized works of Sorolla’s artistic career, but also unknown jewels that had never before been shown to the public.
The exhibition is located in the temporary exhibition hall of the Royal Collections Gallery (located on floor -3) until April 2025. Opening hours are: Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 20:00; Sundays and holidays from 10:00 to 19:00. Tickets, which you can access through this website, are purchased separately from the general admission to the Royal Collections Gallery.
The exhibition will officially close the commemoration of the centenary of the death of the Valencian painter. 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).