Spain: 500 Years of Spanish Painting from the Museums of Madrid

This exhibition features more than 40 masterpieces of Spanish painting drawn from major collections in Madrid, including the Prado, San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and the Reina Sofia, complemented by a select group of works from American museums.

The San Antonio Museum of Art presents a dramatic survey of five hundred years of Spanish painting, stretching from the union of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand in the late fifteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century. Spain: 500 Years of Spanish Painting from the Museums of Madrid contains more than 40 works of art, the majority from major museums in Madrid, and very few of which have previously been on view in the United States.

Organized in celebration of the Tricentennial of the city of San Antonio, the exhibition conveys the splendor of Spanish artistic traditions. This rich heritage is an aspect of what makes San Antonio one of the most distinctive places in the United States.

The exhibit traces the continuity of specific Spanish pictorial traditions, including portraiture, landscape from the earliest hints of naturalism to the impressionist and expressionist movements of the late nineteenth century, devotional painting, and still life. It features works by iconic artists El Greco, Diego Velázquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jusepe de Ribera, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Joaquín Sorolla, and Pablo Picasso. It also celebrates the artistic achievements of many other Spanish masters, such as Juan de Flandes, Luis de Morales, Frederico Madrazo y Kuntz, Antonio Esquivel, and Ignacio Zuloaga.