MFA Boston Will Present

‘El Greco To Velázquez’

Celebration Of Spanish Works Opens April 20

2 cuts requested 3-19

set both at 1½ col

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (Spanish 1599–1660), “Luis de Gongóra y Argote,” 1622, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulus, (Greek, active in Spain, 1541–1614), “View of Toledo,” oil on canvas,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H.O. Havermeyer Collection, bequest of Mrs H.O. Havermeyer, courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

FOR 4/18

MFA BOSTON WILL PRESENT ‘EL GRECO TO VELAZQUEZ’ w/2 cuts

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BOSTON, MASS. — The vibrant age that served as a backdrop both for the end of El Greco’s brilliant career and the beginning of Velazquez’s is the focal point of the groundbreaking exhibition, “El Greco to Velazquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III,” debuting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), on April 20, and on view through July 27.

Organized by the MFA and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, N.C., the exhibition will shed new light on this little known period of 23 years (1598–1621) during which Philip III ruled Spain. Featured are more than 60 paintings, among them 11 works by El Greco and seven by Velazquez, including two masterpieces from the MFA’s own collection, El Greco’s “Portrait of Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino,” 1609, and Velazquez’s “Luis de Gongora y Argote,” 1622.

“El Greco to Velazquez” is curated by the MFA’s Ronni Baer (Mrs Russell W. Baker senior curator of paintings, art of Europe) and the Nasher’s Sarah Schroth (Nancy Hanks senior curator).

“El Greco to Velazquez” offers an in-depth study of Spain’s art in the context of the political, religious and social history from 1598 to 1621, a period bookended by the original late style of El Greco and the emergent naturalism in the work of the young Velazquez. It focuses not only on the achievements of Spain’s greatest painters, but also introduces to the American public outstanding works by lesser known yet highly accomplished artists, among them Juan Bautista Maino, Juan Sanchez Cotan, Luis Tristan and Gregorio Fernandez.

“This internationally important exhibition provides an unprecedented opportunity to illuminate the reign of one of Spain’s most understudied kings, Philip III,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund director of the Museum of Fine Arts. “The MFA is pleased to sponsor new scholarship that will lead to a better understanding of this period, and to bring to Boston masterpieces by some of Spain’s greatest painters.”

The exhibition gathers together the best examples of painting and sculpture made between 1598 and 1621 in order to show the accomplishments of a key group of Spanish artists in creating a new visual language that addressed and expressed the demands of their time. In addition to paintings from the MFA’s collection, works included in the exhibition represent important national and international loans from, among others: the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Museo Nacional del Prado; the Musee du Louvre; the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; and the National Gallery in London. Works on loan (many of which have never previously traveled abroad) also are drawn from private collections and churches in Spain.

A reevaluation of the importance of the reign of Philip III to the history of art is the goal of “El Greco to Velazquez.” To achieve this, the exhibition is divided into thematic sections: Late El Greco, Portraiture, Religion and the Court, Still Life and the Bodegon, and the Duke of Lerma’s camarin.

Included in “El Greco to Velazquez” are two of the artist’s most famous paintings, which reflect this dramatic new direction: “View of Toledo” (around 1600, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and “Laocoon” (around 1610–14, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).

“El Greco to Velazquez,” accompanied by a catalog, charts the birth of a new style, which formed the basis of the art created during Spain’s subsequent “Golden Age,” and explores the artistic environment in which the severe, mannered works created under Philip II gave way to a more luxurious, ornamental and naturalistic art that would be the hallmark of Philip III’s reign.

The museum is at 465 Huntington Avenue. For information, www.mfa.org on 617-267-9300.