Portrait of Spain:
Masterpieces from the Prado
The Gallery was privileged to be the first Australian art museum to host an
exhibition from Madrid’s esteemed Museo Nacional del Prado. ‘Portrait of Spain:
Masterpieces from the Prado’ was the largest and most significant international
loan that the Prado had ever undertaken and was also the first exhibition from
their collection to be shown in the Southern Hemisphere.
On display were 79 masterpieces
by Spanish painters of the sixteenth
to nineteenth centuries, including
Alonso Sánchez Coello, Diego
Velázquez, Jusepe Ribera, Bartolomé
Murillo and Francisco de Goya.
Foreign artists who worked for the
Spanish royal court and directly
influenced the development of
painting in Spain were also well
represented, with superb paintings
by Anthonis Mor, Titian, Peter Paul
Rubens, Giandomenico Tiepolo and
Anton Raphael Mengs.
The exhibition included three
paintings by Diego Velázquez,
including
El Dios Marte
(
Mars
) c.1638
and was the first time that works
by Velázquez had been included in
an exhibition in Australia. Another
exhibition highlight was 22 prints
from three of Francisco de Goya’s
most important print series, ‘Los
Caprichos’, ‘Los Disparates’ and
‘Disasters of War’.
Visitors to ‘Portrait of Spain’
experienced the vibrancy of Spanish
history, contemporary design, food
and culture in La Sala del Prado,
sponsored by Principal Sponsor,
ACCIONA. La Sala featured a cafe
and cutting edge contemporary
Spanish design. Prado Up Late, the
Gallery’s ninth series of Friday night
openings, attracted 10 368 visitors,
becoming one of the most popular
Up Late series held by the Gallery.
With the generous support of the
Tim Fairfax Family Foundation,
the book
Portrait of Spain for
Kids
was developed especially for
younger audiences to enrich family
engagement with the ‘Portrait of
Spain’ exhibition and was distributed
to every primary school and
Indigenous Knowledge Centre
in Queensland.
‘Portrait of Spain’ was specially
curated for the Queensland Art
Gallery by Museo Nacional del Prado
in association with the Queensland
Art Gallery and Art Exhibitions
Australia. QAGOMA and AEA were
delighted to welcome the Museo
Nacional del Prado’s Director, Miguel
Zugaza; Deputy Director, Dr Gabriele
Finaldi and exhibition curator, Chief
Curator of Spanish Painting to 1700,
Javier Portús; along with Principal
Sponsor Acciona’s Chairman, José
Manuel Entrecanales to Brisbane for
the Official Opening of the exhibition.
21 JULY – 4 NOVEMBER 2012
QAG
VISITORS
TOTAL | 111 830
METROPOLITAN BRISBANE 46%
QUEENSLAND (EXCLUDING
METRO BRISBANE) 23%
INTERSTATE 27%
OVERSEAS 4%
Young QAGOMA Members on a tour of
‘Portrait of Spain: Masterpieces from the
Prado’, with
The infanta Isabella Clara
Eugenia and Magdalena Ruiz
(
La infanta
Isabel Clara Eugenia y Magdalena Ruiz
)
c.1585–88 by Alonso Sánchez Coello and
workshop at the Queensland Art Gallery,
September 2012 / Photograph: Chloë
Callistemon
20
// REWIND
/ REVIEW 2012
