Displaying items by tag: El Greco

The long-awaited art exhibition Spanish Masters from the Hermitage. The World of El Greco, Ribera, Zurbarán, Velázquez, Murillo & Goya opened at the Hermitage Amsterdam on Saturday 28 November 2015. The exhibition includes more than sixty superior paintings and a rich collection of graphic works and applied arts masterpieces. Never before has the Netherlands hosted such a comprehensive survey of Spanish art, with work that is hardly represented in Dutch museum collections.

An El Greco painting, one of several dozen from a collection of Old Masters previously belonging to a Viennese industrialist and seized by the Gestapo in Vienna in 1938, has been returned to the family of its former owner after a swift process of recovery, thanks to a cooperative dealer.

The painting, “Portrait of a Gentleman,” was known to have been sold to a dealer in New York in the 1950s, but attempts to reach him proved unsuccessful and the work was able to change hands several times over the next 60 years, before resurfacing again for sale in New York, the institutions that helped facilitate the recovery said.

With a squirming baby and a bowl of fruit, a mother and her family look as if they could be having a picnic under threatening skies.

But look deeper. The mother is Mary and she's handing Jesus a piece of fruit, an echo of Eve handing Adam an apple. Her far-off gaze conveys sadness at knowing what the future holds. The friend is Mary Magdalene, the poster girl for sin, casting her eyes down in penitence.  

The fifth and latest installment of the Portland Art Museum's Masterworks series brings El Greco's "Holy Family With Saint Mary Magdalen" to Portland through April 5.

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.

How did El Greco move from painting icons on the island of Crete to the elongated, expressionist works that made him famous and influenced artists like Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne? To mark the 400th anniversary of the artist’s death, three New York City museums are trying to provide an answer.

On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will bring out its nine El Greco paintings as well as another six lent from the Hispanic Society.

Seventy paintings that span the 15th to the 20th centuries from the collection of the Spanish investor Juan Abelló and his wife Ana Gamazo, including works by El Greco, Francisco Goya, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, are due to go on show in the US for the first time. “The Abelló Collection: A Modern Taste for European Masters” will open at the Meadows Museum at the Southern Methodist University in Texas next year, 18 April-2 August.

A key work in the show is Francis Bacon’s "Triptych," 1983, one of the artist’s final works in the format, which Abelló acquired in 2008 through a private sale.

El Greco’s Vincenzo Anastagi, acquired a century ago by Henry Clay Frick, is one of The Frick Collection’s most celebrated paintings and one of only two full-length portraits by the master. It was executed during the artist’s six-year stay in Rome, before he moved to Spain, where he spent the rest of his career. Much of the force of this work emanates from the resplendent half-armor worn by Anastagi. Rich highlights applied with broad brushstrokes accentuate the steel, its metallic sheen contrasting with the velvety texture of Anastagi’s green breeches and the dark crimson curtain. To mark the 400th anniversary of El Greco’s death, the Frick will pair Vincenzo Anastagi with the rarely seen Jacopo Boncompagni by the artist’s Roman contemporary Scipione Pulzone. With its gleaming, highly detailed polish, Pulzone’s portrait of Boncompagni, on loan from a private collection, epitomizes the elegant style that dominated high-society portraiture in Rome during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. El Greco’s painterly portrayal of Anastagi stands in stark contrast, underscoring the artist’s innovative departures from convention. The exhibition, held in the Frick’s East Gallery, is organized by Jeongho Park, Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow. It is generously funded by gifts from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Sidney R. Knafel and Londa Weisman in memory of Vera and Walter A. Eberstadt. The Frick will continue its celebration of El Greco this autumn and winter with a collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado may be missing a boat load of art, but it’s also found quite the pile of cash. According to a report in Germany’s FAZ, the institution has discovered a previously unknown Swiss bank account containing over €1 million, which is part of a fortune bequeathed to it in 1991.

The account belonged to Manuel Villaescusa Ferrero, a lawyer and real estate mogul who bequeathed the entirety of his €42 million ($56 million) fortune to the Prado to be used for new acquisitions. The substantial gift has already been used to purchase works by El Greco, Georges de La Tour, Sánchez Cotán, Juan van der Hamen y Léon and Goya.

Madrid's top art museum the Prado unveiled a major show Monday about the master painter El Greco, exploring his influence on modern greats such as Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock.

"El Greco and Modern Painting" is part of a year-long series of big exhibitions to mark the 400th anniversary of the Greek-born master's death.

El Greco's works languished in obscurity until the late 19th century, but once collectors noticed them he became one of the most important figures in the history of art, influencing Picasso at the start of the Cubist movement.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO is in the process of restoring ‘The Penitent Magdalene’ by the Spanish Renaissance master, El Greco. The project, which began in the spring of 2013, has been made possible by the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.

The endeavor is being helmed by Scott Heffley, the Senior Conservator of Paintings at the Nelson-Atkins. Heffley has removed various layers of past restoration work, exposing the canvas' original paint. He will begin rebuilding the painting’s damaged surface so that El Greco’s original work will be brought to the forefront. The process is expected to take months. Once the restoration is complete, ‘The Penitent Magdalene’ will travel to Toledo, Spain so that it can be included in a 400th anniversary celebration of El Greco’s death.

To date, the Bank of America Art Conservation Project has funded the restoration of over 58 works in 26 countries.