Rosario de Velasco

 

Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza,

18 June to 15 September 2024

Valencia, Museo de Bellas Artes

7 November 2024 to 16 February 2025

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza is jointly presenting with the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia an exhibition on the Spanish figurative painter Rosario de Velasco (Madrid, 1904 - Barcelona, 1991). Curated by Miguel Lusarreta and Toya Viudes de Velasco, the artist’s great-niece, the exhibition brings together around 30 paintings from the 1920s to the 1940s - the earliest and the most important from Velasco’s career - and also has a section on her work as an illustrator.  

Rosario de Velasco, The Massacre of the Innocents, ca. 1936. Oil on canvas. 164 x 167,5 cm. Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia 

The exhibition, which is benefiting from the support of the Region of Madrid and the City Council of Madrid, aims to present and draw attention to the work of one of the great Spanish women artists of the first half of the 20th century. In addition to well-known paintings from museum collections, such as the famous oil Adam and Eve (1932) from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, The Massacre of the Innocents (ca. 1936) from the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, Maragatos(1934) from the Museo del Traje, Madrid, and Carnival (before 1936) from the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the exhibition features works still with the artist’s family and in private collections and others that have only been rediscovered and located in the past few months. Following its showing in Madrid, the exhibition will be presented at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia from 7 November 2024 to 16 February 2025. 

Rosario de Velasco’s work represents an outstanding example of the so-called “return to order” in Spain, a movement parallel to German New Objectivity and Italian Novecento with a style that combined tradition and modernity. Velasco admired painters such as Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Velázquez and Goya, but also avant-garde figures such as De Chirico, Braque, Picassoartistas de vanguardia, como De Chirico, Braque o Picasso and the exponents of the “return to order” in Germany and Italy, whom she encountered via magazines and exhibitions held in Madrid in the 1920s.

Rosario de Velasco. Maragatos, 1934. 
Oil on canvas, 210 x 150 cm. 
Museo del Traje, Madrid

The exhibition also focuses on Velasco’s activities as an illustrator, revealing a graphic artist of great versatility. This is evident, for example, in her illustrations for the 1928 edition of Stories for dreaming by María Teresa León and Stories for my grandchildren (1932) by Carmen Karr. 

Rosario de Velasco (Madrid, 1904 – Barcelona, 1991) 

Born into a very traditional and religious family in Madrid, Rosario de Velasco began to study art aged fifteen at the academy of the genre painter Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor, a member of the Royal San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts and two-time director of the Museo del Prado. Dating from that period is her Self-portrait (1924), which she signed with a monogram consisting of the initials R, D and V. Inspired by Dürer’s monogram, it has been fundamental to locating some of the artist’s paintings.

The young artist was, however, aware that she needed to go beyond tradition and assimilate the new trends and avant-gardes in her desire to compete as an equal in a largely male world. Her openness and cultural curiosity led her to associate with numerous creators of her generations, particularly women painters and writers such as Maruja Mallo, Rosa Chacel and María Teresa León. Other women friends included Mercedes Noboa, Matilde Marquina, Concha Espina and Lilí Álvarez, the tennis champion whom Velasco painted in the 1930s and with whom she enjoyed playing the sport. Velasco was also a tireless traveller and enjoyed mountaineering, skiing and rock climbing.

Rosario de Velasco, Adam and Eve, 
1932. Oil on canvas, 109 x 134 cm. 
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte 
Reina Sofía, Madrid.

In 1924, the year she completed her studies, the artist participated in the National Fine Arts Exhibition in Madrid and also produced her first illustrations. By the 1930s Rosario de Velasco had established a considerable reputation, taking part in numerous group shows and competitions, such as the National Fine Arts Exhibition of 1932 in which she presented the canvas Adam and Eve, which earned her a second prize medal in the Painting category. The work was exhibited together with all the other entries in the Palacio de Exposiciones in the Retiro park and in various exhibitions organised by the Society of Iberian Artists held in Copenhagen and Berlin, where it was warmly praised by critics for its power and originality and Velasco was singled out as the major discovery of the season.The work is startling in its play of perspective, employing a bird’s-eye view, a device also used in various still lifes and in (Untitled) The Children’s Room (1932-33), another work in the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía, in which the artist disrupts the space through an original arrangement of objects that recalls Cubism.

Rosario de Velasco. Things, 1933. 
Oil on canvas, 45,5 x 65,5 cm.
 Private collection.

The majority of Velasco’s most important works date from that decade: Maragatos, which was awarded second prize in the National Painting competition of 1932; The Massacre of the Innocents (ca. 1936), which for many years was attributed to Ricardo Verde due to the signature “RV”, until it was correctly attributed to Velasco in 1995; and Laundresses (1934), a wedding gift to her brother, Dr Luis de Velasco, who appears in another work in the present exhibition.

In 1935 Gypsies was selected to participate in the Carnegie International, an exhibition of artists from different countries organised by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Velasco’s work shared space with that of Carlo Carrá, Otto Dix, Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as Picasso and Dalí. Lost for years, the painting has only recently been located and is one of the major discoveries made during the preparation of this exhibition.

Rosario de Velasco. Gypsies, 1934. 
Oil on canvas, 95 x 132 cm.
 Private collection.

On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War the artist’s membership of the Falange and her family context led her to leave Madrid. She went first to Valencia and later to Barcelona, to Sant Andreu de Llavaneres where she met a doctor, Javier Farrerons, who later became her husband and who succeeded in liberating her from the Modelo prison in Barcelona where she was being held. After the war Velasco settled in Barcelona with her husband and their daughter María del Mar.

Rosario de Velasco. The Blue Bird, 1927. 
Drawing for the cover of the book 
Cuentos para soñar by María Teresa 
León. Mixed media on paper.
Colección González Rodríguez

In 1939 Velasco participated in the National Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture in Valencia and in 1940 presented her first solo exhibition, in Barcelona. Over the following years she continued to exhibit in Madrid although less often, for example at the National Fine Arts Exhibitions of 1941 and 1954, and at various galleries. In 1944 Velasco was selected for the 2nd Salón de los Once, organised by the Academia Breve de Crítica de Arte, founded by Eugenio d’Ors to promote art of the immediate post-war period. D’Ors was one of the well known figures in the artist and her husband’s circle of friends, together with Dionisio Ridruejo, Pere Pruna and Carmen Conde, among others.

The recent search for works by Velasco which was undertaken via the social media and the media in general has resulted in the identification in private collections of both celebrated works of which all trace had been lost, such as Things (1933), Motherhood (1933), Gypsies (1934) and Pensive Woman (1935), as well as various illustrations for books and a preparatory drawing for the oil painting Carnival (before 1936). It has also brought to light some previously completely unknown works such as Still Life with Fish (ca. 1930), and Girls with a Doll (1937).  

EXHIBITION DETAILS 

Title:  Rosario de Velasco 

Organised by: The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia 

With the collaboration of the Region of Madrid and the City Council of Madrid 

Venue and dates: Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, from 18 June to 15 September 2024; Valencia, Museo de Bellas Artes, from 7 November 2024 to 16 February 2025. 

Curators: Toya Viudes de Velasco and Miguel Lusarreta 

Technicalcurator: Elena Rodríguez, Exhibitionsdepartment, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza 

Number of works: 68, including paintings, work on paper and books

Publications: Catalogue with texts by Estrella de Diego, Víctor Ugarte Farreronsand the exhibition’s curators 

Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks”

 

The Art Institute of Chicago  

June 2–September 22, 2024

Georgia O’Keeffe. East River from the Shelton (East River No. 1), 1927-28. New Jersey State Museum Collection. Purchased by the Association for the Arts of the New Jersey State Museum with a gift from Mary Lea Johnson. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Photo by Peter S. Jacobs.

This exhibition—featuring approximately 100 works across a range of media, including paintings, drawings, pastels, and photographs—is the first to seriously examine O’Keeffe’s urban landscapes, while also situating them in the diverse context of her other compositions of the late 1920s and early 1930s. 

Georgia O’Keeffe, East River from the 30th Story of the Shelton Hotel, 1928.

Famed for her images of flowers and Southwestern landscapes, O’Keeffe has received little attention for her inspiring urban landscapes created in New York early in her career. In 1924 the artist and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, moved to the Shelton Hotel in New York City. At the time, it was the tallest building of its kind in the world. Shortly thereafter, she began creating a powerful group of works that she called “my New Yorks,” which explored the dynamic potential of the New York skyline. O’Keeffe resisted the popular approaches of the time, which often viewed the city as a streamlined, impersonal series of geometric canyons. Instead she created dynamic compositions both looking down into the city as well as humbling views directed up at the new urban monoliths. 

“O’Keeffe stated that ‘One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt,’ and these works represent her inventive approach to understanding Manhattan’s exciting new skyscrapers,” said Sarah Kelly Oehler, Field-McCormick Chair and Curator, Arts of the Americas, and vice president, Curatorial Strategy. “Frequently juxtaposing natural effects with soaring towers, her ‘New Yorks’ beautifully demonstrate the artist’s powerful personal response to the city.”

These New York paintings are by no means outliers in O’Keeffe’s body of work. Instead, they are integral in understanding how she became the artist we know today. For this reason, the exhibition includes a significant portion of the artist’s New York paintings alongside select works that highlight her varied subject matter, from shells and flowers to abstractions and landscapes. 

“O’Keeffe moved easily between representation and abstraction, exploring numerous subjects and aesthetic vocabularies concurrently. With tremendous curiosity and dexterity, she translated her lived experiences into bold compositions, ranging from towering skyscrapers and expansive city views, to enlarged flowers, bones, landscapes, and more.” said Annelise K. Madsen, Gilda and Henry Buchbinder Associate Curator, Arts of the Americas.

This integration of subject matter underscores how O’Keeffe centered these works in her innovative and experimental modernist investigation of form, line, and color—an approach she continued upon her arrival in the Southwest. Additionally, this unique show will also include contemporaneous photographs by Stieglitz from the Shelton and other Manhattan high-rises, and the productive artistic dialogue that developed as each was inspired by their powerfully new urban environment.

Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks” is curated by the Art Institute’s Sarah Kelly Oehler and Annelise K. Madsen. 

Catalogue

The accompanying richly illustrated catalog will feature a series of essays that presents new scholarship and viewpoints on this formative group of works.

A revelatory study of Georgia O’Keeffe’s New York paintings of the late 1920s and their deep significance within the artist’s development
 
In 1924 Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) first moved to the Shelton Hotel in New York with her husband, the photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz. The Shelton was Manhattan’s earliest residential skyscraper, and its dizzying heights inspired O’Keeffe to create a powerful series of approximately twenty-five paintings and numerous drawings over a span of about five years. She called these “my New Yorks,” and they overwhelmingly consist of two types of compositions: sprawling observations looking down onto the city and humbling views directed up at the newly built urban monoliths. Exploring the New York skyline, O’Keeffe resisted the approach of contemporaries such as Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand—who celebrated New York as a streamlined, impersonal series of geometric canyons—and instead portrayed it as an amalgamation of the organic and the inorganic, the natural and the constructed. Only in this way could she express New York (in her words) “as it is felt.”
 
Reshaping our understanding of this pivotal yet underappreciated period in O’Keeffe’s storied career, this publication situates the New York paintings within the artist’s larger oeuvre and examines how these works reflect narratives of built environments, racialized space, and the politics of place.

Monet in Focus

 The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) 

March 31 through August 11, 2024

Featuring five significant paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet, including three special loans from the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris and two from the CMA’s own collection, the exhibition explores how Monet immersed himself in capturing the momentary effects of light and atmosphere at various times of day and under different weather conditions. The three paintings of Monet’s water garden reflect the artist’s sensitivity to the decorative qualities of color and form in his late works. This daring advance toward abstraction represents Monet as one of the most avant-garde artists of the early 20th century. On view in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery from March 31 through August 11, 2024, this free exhibition is co-organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Musée Marmottan Monet.

“In creating this focused exhibition, our goal was to highlight Monet’s impassioned pursuit to record the elusive qualities of light, color, and atmosphere in his art,” said Heather Lemonedes Brown, the CMA’s Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of Modern European Art. “Taken together, the five paintings in this focused installation demonstrate Monet’s progression toward painting increasingly contemplative works that depict not the precise way the landscape looked, but the sensations such views conjured for the artist. In the 20th century, Monet aligned himself with the poet Stephane Mallarmé and the composer Claude Debussy, identifying not with the Impressionist friends of his youth but with the less determinate domain of suggestion and dreams. It is the artist’s mature, poetic vision that visitors will find in Monet in Focus.”

PAINTINGS IN THE EXHIBITION

: Rouen Cathedral, Sunlight Effect, End of the Day, 1892. Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Oil on canvas; 100 x 65 cm. Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Michel Monet bequest, 1966. Inv. 5174. Photo © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Rouen Cathedral, Sunlight Effect, End of the Day (1892), on loan from Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, belongs to one of Monet’s most important series in which he painted more than 30 views of the cathedral. In this depiction, the facade is brought dramatically forward and cropped at the edges in a way that reduces the complex Gothic architecture to a single, powerful shape. By keeping forms close to the surface and emphasizing the interplay of expressive brushwork and intense color, Monet transformed this renowned medieval landmark into a modern visual icon that seems to shimmer mysteriously in a haze of colored light.

Water Lilies, 1907. Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Oil on canvas; 100 x 73 cm. Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Michel Monet bequest, 1966. Inv. 5118. Photo © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Water Lilies (1907), on loan from Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, is one of more than 250 views Monet painted of his water garden at Giverny. This series is among the artist’s most distinctive and celebrated contributions to modern art. He often arose at four in the morning to capture the pond at first light and delighted in observing the water garden at specific times of the day, from early morning mists to the soft, crepuscular tones of early evening. The water garden served as the inspiration for many of his greatest paintings, including large triptychs designed to surround the viewer in a three-dimensional panorama.

Japanese Bridge, 1918. Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Oil on canvas; 100 x 200 cm. Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Michel Monet bequest, 1966. Inv. 5106. Photo © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 

Also on loan is his painting Japanese Bridge (1918). Monet constructed the bridge to link the banks of his water garden with the small island in the center. The bridge was the subject of more than two dozen works of art. The 1918 painting in the current exhibition is among his most daringly abstract works. The viewpoint moves close to the motif, placing greater emphasis on densely compacted surfaces of expressive brushwork and color, so that the bridge nearly disappears under overlapping skeins of thickly encrusted paint and strokes of color. The audacious dissolution of form announced a new moment of radical experimentation for an artist in his 80s.

Water Lilies (Agapanthus), Monet’s masterwork from CMA’s collection, was part of his Grandes Décorations in which he sought to arrange a series of monumental water lily paintings in an oval room, thus creating a continuous panorama that would enclose the viewer in an environment of pure color. Ultimately, 22 of Monet’s Grandes Décorations were installed in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. In 1960, the CMA acquired the left panel of one of the triptychs that was not installed in the Musée de l’Orangerie and which remained in Monet’s studio following his death in 1926.

Gardener’s House at Antibes, also part of the CMA’s collection, is one in a series of 35 canvases that Monet painted during a five-month stay at Antibes in southern France. Under the Mediterranean sun, his colors became lighter, his paint surfaces more thickly impastoed. “What I bring back from here,” he wrote, “will be sweetness itself, white, pink, and blue, all enveloped in a magical air.” The strong colors and heavy paint surfaces seem drenched in intense light and heat of the Mediterranean coast.

“The Musée Marmottan Monet holds one of the world’s finest collections of works by Monet,” said Brown. “Thanks to a wonderful working relationship, we were able to send the CMA’s Water Lilies (Agapanthus) from the CMA to the exhibition Monet-Mitchell at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, in 2022. As a token of gratitude, they allowed us to borrow these three paintings for our visitors to enjoy.”