Collections
Contenido
Cronológicamente, la colección retoma el hilo temporal de la del Museo del Prado, al cubrir el periodo que va de finales del siglo a la actualidad. El Real Decreto 410/1995, de 17 de marzo, replanteó las colecciones estatales, marcando el año de nacimiento de Picasso (1881) como línea divisoria entre el Prado y el Reina Sofía, un criterio que se ha cuestionado como demasiado rígido y que va siendo diluido por las últimas iniciativas de este museo, como la incorporación de ejemplos de Goya y Sorolla.[20].
La trayectoria del arte moderno y contemporáneo en España, ignorado durante décadas por el coleccionismo privado y los organismos públicos, explica que haya muchas lagunas en el repertorio internacional del museo, si bien cuenta con algunos ejemplos relevantes de múltiples artistas desde Pierre Bonnard hasta Louise Bourgeois. La colección toma como núcleo el arte español contemporáneo y lo contextualiza en las corrientes internacionales con ejemplos de autores extranjeros, haciendo hincapié en aquellos vinculados con España, como Robert y Sonia Delaunay, André Masson, Francis Picabia, Alexander Calder, Torres García, Rafael Barradas o Wifredo Lam.
El inventario de bienes artísticos comprendía, a septiembre de 2014, 18 145 obras, entre las que se incluyen 3408 pinturas, 1654 esculturas e instalaciones, 3148 dibujos, 5502 grabados, 3630 fotografías, 346 piezas de vídeo, cine y audiovisuales, 354 de artes performativas e intermedia y 98 de arquitectura, diseño y artes decorativas. De ellas se exponen 1100, un 6%.[21] Por otra parte, también se exhiben algunas piezas cedidas en depósito por terceros con el fin de completar los fondos propios del museo.
En septiembre de 2014 se hizo público el legado que la coleccionista Soledad Lorenzo planea donar al Museo, y que consiste en casi 400 piezas de importantes artistas como Antoni Tàpies, Txomin Badiola, Miquel Barceló, José María Sicilia, José Manuel Broto o Eduardo Chillida, entre otros.[22].
Early 20th century
The collection starts with Spanish authors from the turn of the century, such as Ramón Casas, Anglada Camarasa, Romero de Torres, Ignacio Zuloaga, Isidro Nonell, Joaquín Mir, María Blanchard, López Mezquita, Julio González, Santiago Rusiñol, José Clará, Francisco Iturrino, Julio Antonio or José Gutiérrez Solana (a painter whose archive was also acquired in 1999).[23].
They are artists belonging to various trends, such as Modernism "Modernism (art)"), Realism or the incipient Cubism, a reflection of the variety of art at the beginning of the century. According to more stylistic than chronological criteria, the repertoire on display ignored artists such as Joaquín Sorolla, whose absence was alleviated with the oil painting Arrival of the Fishing, deposited by the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias.[24].
Contemporary international artists, such as Pierre Bonnard, George Grosz, Medardo Rosso, Albert Marquet, Kandinsky, Joaquín Torres García and Willi Baumeister are also present in the collection.
The collection of works belonging to Cubism is of great importance, adding to the paintings of Picasso and Gris those of Georges Braque (Bottle and Fruits, 1911; Playing Cards and Dice, 1914), Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, André Lhote, Amédée Ozenfant and other authors such as Robert and Sonia Delaunay, as well as sculptures by Henri Laurens, Jacques Lipchitz and himself. Picasso. This repertoire has benefited from a temporary extendable loan agreement, signed by the Telefónica Foundation in 2016, of 33 cubist works owned by said company.[25].
Important for the museum's discourse and almost unprecedented in Spain is the presence of Oskar Schlemmer, one of the great artists of the Bauhaus, and the figurines he made for the Ballet Triádico (1922) can be seen in the museum, thanks to a long-term loan from his descendants.[26].
The set of works ascribed to surrealism and related movements is also outstanding, and brings together a very varied list of authors: Francis Picabia (of whom there is an excellent representation, with paintings and drawings), René Magritte (Le secret du cortège, 1927; Grelots roses, ciels en lambeaux, 1930), Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Brassaï, Victor Brauner, Jean Arp, Paul Klee, Kurt Schwitters (Dadaist collages), Max Ernst or Joseph Cornell. Very notable is the collection of works by the Frenchman André Masson, in which the oil paintings La famille en état de métamorphose (1929) or La sorcière (1942-43) stand out, as well as numerous drawings and sketches related to bullfighting and Spanish landscapes.
Gris, Picasso, Dalí and Miró
The Reina Sofía Museum has excellent collections of Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró, four Spanish artists who are among the most important of the century and whose works constitute the great strength of the museum.
The repertoire of Madrid-born Juan Gris is singularly rich, despite having had to be brought together in its entirety in recent decades, since his first work was not incorporated into Spanish national collections until a very late date. It was La guitare devant la mer (The guitar before the sea), purchased in 1977 for the MEAC.[27] However, currently the author's collection already includes nineteen paintings,[28] among which are some of his best works, such as La bouteille d'anis (The anise bottle) (1914), Portrait de Madame Josette Gris (Portrait of Madame Josette Gris) (1916) or the aforementioned The guitar before the sea (1925).
The representation of Picasso in the museum focuses on the 1930s, since although the artist's collection has gradually been strengthened with several acquisitions, the presence of works from other periods remains limited. The earliest work by this artist that the Reina Sofía preserves is Woman in Blue, from 1901, belonging to the so-called "Blue Stage".[29] It is followed by two paintings of analytical Cubism "Cubism") (The Fruit Bowl, 1910, and The Dead Birds, 1912), others surrealist, several in his expressionist style from the 1930s and there are also some from his last years (three great canvases on the theme The painter and the model, from 1963). The collection consists of a total of 292 works, including 29 paintings,[24] and four of his main sculptures: Tête de femme (Fernande) (Woman's Head [Fernande]), considered the first Cubist sculpture,[30] Femme au jardin (Woman in the Garden), La femme au vase (The Offering Lady) and L'homme au mouton (The Man with the Lamb), as well as drawings and prints. Among the latter, Dream and lie of Franco and La Minotauromaquia stand out. However, it does not have any representation of its important work in the field of ceramics.
The museum's best-known work is undoubtedly the Guernica "Guernica (painting)"), one of the most relevant and iconic works of modern art, which is exhibited along with multiple preparatory sketches and original photographs that document its creation, taken by Dora Maar. The painting and some of the sketches were kept for decades at the MOMA in New York and arrived in Spain in 1981, initially being deposited in the Casón del Buen Retiro, until the group was moved to this museum in 1992. Picasso had painted this work commissioned by the Government of the Second Republic, to decorate the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. Another work for the same pavilion, the sculpture , by Alberto Sánchez, presides over the entrance to the MNCARS; This is a replica since the original was destroyed.
Spanish art of the second half of the 20th century: from abstraction to Pop art
Spanish figurative art from the central decades of the century has examples of artists such as Pablo Gargallo, Pancho Cossío, Francisco Arias Álvarez, Francisco Bores, Benjamín Palencia, Maruja Mallo, Alberto Sánchez, the surrealist Óscar Domínguez, José de Togores, Ángeles Santos Torroella, Joaquín Sunyer and Joan Ponç.
For its part, the abstract route from mid-century in Spain features works by sculptors Jorge Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida, the latter present with some large pieces weighing several tons. Other authors are: Pablo Palazuelo, Pablo Serrano, Antoni Tàpies, Manuel Millares, Lucio Muñoz, Luis Feito, Gerardo Rueda, Rafael Canogar, José Guerrero "José Guerrero (painter)"), Esteban Vicente, Eusebio Sempere, Equipo 57, Gustavo Torner, Antonio Saura; later figurative artists, such as Antonio López García and Carmen Laffón, to finally lead to the "Pop art" aesthetic, followed (with variants) by Equipo Crónica, Luis Gordillo, Eduardo Arroyo or Guillermo Pérez Villalta.
Renowned Spanish authors, such as Miquel Barceló, Jaume Plensa or Juan Muñoz "Juan Muñoz (sculptor)"), together with young artists who have developed their work in recent decades, complete the complete tour of contemporary Spanish art and its contributions to the world art scene.[33].
International art of the second half of the 20th century
The presence of foreign artists has been increasing in the museum's collections in a notable way, especially with regard to the second half of the century.
The mid-century collection includes works by Diego Rivera (Flower Seller, 1949), Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Henry Moore, Anthony Caro, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Francis Bacon "Francis Bacon (painter)") (Lying figure, 1966), Yves Klein (sculptures and paintings, including one of his famous Anthropometries), Nancy Spero, Jean Tinguely, Asger Jorn, Pierre Alechinsky, Pol Bury, Constant (the last four, members of the CoBrA group), Lucio Fontana (Concetto spaziale. La Fine di Dio, 1963) or Christo.
Artists from trends as different as Tachisme (Jean Dubuffet, Henri Michaux, Wols, Jean Fautrier, Serge Poliakoff), Pop art (Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton "Richard Hamilton (artist)"), Alex Katz), Conceptual art (Joseph Kosuth, Daniel Buren, Hans Haacke, Cildo Meireles, Marcel Broodthaers), abstraction in its various modalities, Arte Povera are represented. (Mario Merz, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Luciano Fabro"), Jannis Kounellis), Kinetic Art (Alexander Calder, Jesús Soto), Land Art or minimalism (Donald Judd, Robert Mangold, Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre). From this last movement there was the opportunity in 1988 to acquire, under very advantageous economic conditions, a substantial part of the Panza di Biumo collection, one of the best in the world, but the Reina Sofía refused the offer.[34] For its part, American abstract expressionism, despite its significance in art after the Second World War, is one of the contemporary movements most poorly represented in the museum, due to its high price in the market.[35] There are barely two works by Mark Rothko, Sam Francis and Cy Twombly, three by Robert Motherwell (including one from his most notable series, Elegía to the Spanish Republic), and many others by Morris Louis (Vernal, Crown (Corona) and Lamed Beth, all of them belonging to his series Veils (Veils) -the last two bequeathed by his widow-),[36] and there is nothing by Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning or Clyfford Still.
Artists from the end of the century such as those of the Fluxus movement (Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Robert Filliou, Öyvind Fahlström), Anish Kapoor, Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Richard Serra, Julian Schnabel (series of paintings To the People of Spain, 1991), Martin Kippenberger, Olafur Eliasson, etc., show the latest trends in contemporary art at the level international.
2009: reorganization
When Manuel Borja-Villel took over as director in 2008, a position he held until January 2023,[37] he promoted a new plan to reorganize its collections. The museum presented this plan on May 28, 2009, considering it the most profound in twenty years. Its main novelties were the breaking of the merely linear criterion of the previous arrangement, the mixture of disparate authors forming thematic rooms, and the incorporation of numerous new and stored works, as well as engravings by Francisco de Goya, with copies initially lent by the Prado Museum and later by the National Chalcography. Goya is considered a precursor of several modern trends but was excluded from this museum due to chronological limitations.
The new arrangement begins on the second floor of the Sabatini Building"), with works up to the 1930s. It continues on the fourth floor of the same building, with art ranging from the post-war period to the early 1960s; this section was rearranged again in 2010. The route goes to the first floor of the new Nouvel Building, and concludes on the ground floor of said building, with the most recent works.
2021: Communicating Vessels
In November 2021, the Museum presents the rearrangement of its Permanent Collection, called Communicating Vessels.[38] It is arranged on four floors of the Sabatini building, including new rooms specifically enabled for this rearrangement, and on two of the floors of the Nouvel extension. With 70% new pieces, and trying to place the collection in relation to the problems of the present, this new presentation aims to increase the presence of women artists; photographic, bibliographical and architectural collections; as well as addressing topics such as colonialism, feminism, ecology, or the 15-M movement.[39].
Communicating Vessels is divided into 8 episodes, which cover artistic practices from 1881 to the present day:
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- Avant-garde territories. City, architecture and magazines.
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- Double exhibition: art and the Cold War.
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- The enemies of poetry: resistance in Latin America.
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- A drunken ship: eclecticism, institutionality and disobedience in the eighties.
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- Device 92. Can History be rewound?
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- Exodus and life together.