Displaying items by tag: spanish paintings

Gabriele Finaldi has been appointed the new head of the National Gallery, replacing Nicholas Penny who announced his retirement last year.

The 49-year-old is currently deputy director for collections and research at the Prado museum in Madrid.

Finaldi was a curator at the National from 1992 to 2002, where he was responsible for the later paintings in the Italian and Spanish collections.

He said he was "deeply honored" to take on the directorship.

The San Diego Museum of Art announced Monday the acquisitions of two major Spanish paintings and will celebrate with free public admission on the last weekends of January and February.

The two paintings are "St. Francis in Prayer in a Grotto" by Francisco de Zurbarán and "By the Seashore, Valencia" by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. "St. Francis" will be on view beginning Jan. 21 and "By the Seashore" on Feb. 26..

The acquisitions were made possible by generous donations from Conrad Prebys and Debbie Turner, in the case of the Zurbarán, and the Legler Benbough Foundation, whose donation led to the acquisition of the Sorolla.

The Frick Collection has always been rich in Spanish paintings, particularly works by Velázquez, El Greco and Goya. The museum’s founder, Henry Clay Frick, bought three canvases by El Greco on his travels to Spain, and they currently hang together as part of “El Greco in New York,” an exhibition organized in collaboration with the Frick, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hispanic Society to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the artist’s death.

But in 1904, before Frick acquired any of these well-known paintings, he bought a self-portrait by the 17th-century Baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

The San Diego Museum of Art on Friday announced the acquisition of a major painting by one of the most important Spanish artists of the 17th century.

The Museum said “The Visitation” by Juan de Valdés Leal will be a “transformative presence” in the European art galleries, where it joins an already world-renowned collection of Spanish paintings.

“We are thrilled to acquire this extraordinary painting, which is the first work by Juan de Valdés Leal to enter the collection. It builds on the existing strength of our holdings of Spanish art and raises the overall significance of the collection to a new level.” said Roxana Velásquez, executive director of the museum.