Curator’s Tour at the exhibition “Zuloaga. Soul of Spain”
Tour of the exhibition by the curator, Spanish art historian Carlos Alonso Pérez-Fajardo, in English.
Entrance with the museum ticket, but we ask you kindly to register beforehand online.
Ignacio Zuloaga (1870–1945) holds a special place in Spanish art. His works reflect the painful search for identity and the political and social breakthroughs of the beginning of the 20th century in Spain, while preserving and developing the traditions of the Spanish school of painting. Zuloaga, who came from a Basque artistic dynasty, studied art in the independent private academies of Paris, but he considered the old Spanish masters to be his main role models and their influence is apparent in many of his works.
Although Zuloaga’s widespread fame and great success were guaranteed by numerous parade portraits of influential members of the contemporary elite in Spain and in both North and South America, the present exhibition focuses on the themes that the artist himself considered important. The mentality and essential values of Spain after the horrors of the Civil War and its search for identity were shown in Zuloaga’s portrait series of Spanish luminaries, where the model’s character and intellectual world are depicted with equal power through their expressions and poses, as well as in the landscapes that surround them.
The role of Ignacio Zuloaga in Spanish culture is not limited to his own artistic output. He was one of the most active heritage protectors and a dedicated art collector.
Carlos Alonso Pérez-Fajardo is an art historian. He was the director of the Pedraza Ignacio Zuloaga Museum between 2018 and 2021, and in recent years, has been actively involved in introducing the artist’s life and work to the world. He has curated and helped to organise several exhibitions dedicated, or related, to Ignacio Zuloaga, including: Zuloaga y Falla, historia de una amistad in Madrid, Salamanca and Granada (2015–2016); Zuloaga en el Paris de la Belle Époque in Madrid (2017–2018); Las Maravillas de la Belle Époque in Madrid (2017–2018); Zuloaga: carácter y emoción in Valencia (2018); and Zuloaga. 1870–1945 in Bilbao (2019). He also paricipates in the research project of Spanish universities and research centres,The painter’s apprenticeship and the practice of painting in the Hispanic kingdoms (1350–1500), that the Art Museum of Estonia takes part in, too.
The tour is a part of the finissage of the exhibition “Zuloaga. Soul of Spain“
As an exception, Mikkel Museum wil be open auntil 20.00 on 4 and 5 September 2021.