MADRID.- Museo ICO opened yesterday, 13 February, Picasso’s Vollard Suite and Etching in the Museo ICO Collection. The exhibition proposes an expository dialogue between the etching masterpiece, the Vollard Suite –which will be shown in its entirety– and a selection of etchings and paintings by artists including Juan Genovés, Eduardo Arroyo, Manolo Valdés, Miguel Ángel Campano and Darío Villalbam, names that forged the language and trends of contemporary art in Spain in the second half of the 20th century.
The exhibition, curated by Gonzalo Doval Sánchez and comprising works acquired by the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) in the 1990s, is in line with the primary mission for which the Museo ICO was created: the conservation and promotion of its collections. It therefore constitutes a unique opportunity to see works not usually exhibited to the public and, particularly, to enjoy one of the few complete existing sets in the world of Picasso’s Vollard Suite in Madrid, last shown in the capital over a decade ago, in 2012.
Open to the public until 20 July, the exhibition will include the usual extensive promotional programme which, through guided tours and interactive activities, will bring the works and their authors closer to all visitors, using the practices that identify the Museo ICO as a constant laboratory for accessibility. In this regard, the exhibition will provide materials adapted to the route in Easy Reading, Sign Language Interpretation (ILSE) on demand for all of the activities on offer, and proposals designed for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. With the Empower Parents programme, now in its twelfth edition at the Museo ICO, new families with children who have autism will be welcomed.
Picasso’s visual universe
The Vollard Suite, considered to be the most important series of contemporary etchings, comprises a total of one hundred works produced between 1930 and 1937, the period during which the collaboration between art dealer and gallery owner Ambroise Vollard and Pablo Picasso reached its peak. The Vollard Suite was the result of a friendly and commercial exchange between the two men, as in 1937 Vollard obtained the initial series of 97 copper etching plates of the Suite in exchange for a significant number of paintings he owned that Picasso wanted for his private collection.
Divided into different thematic blocks, it explores the evolution of Picasso's creative and personal obsessions: The Sculptor's Studio, The Battle of Love, The Minotaur and Portraits of Ambroise Vollard. The etchings, displayed in chronological order, are also an occasion to go over the different techniques used by the artist from Malaga in this discipline, such as acquaforte, aquatint, burin and drypoint.
The forging of contemporary Spanish art history
The ICO collection comprises Spanish sculpture with drawings, contemporary Spanish painting and etchings that the Museo ICO, inaugurated in 1996, exhibited on a permanent basis until 2012, when it specialised its exhibition programme in the fields of architecture and photography. Since then, a large number of the works have been requested on loan by national and international museums and cultural institutions.
In this regard, Picasso’s Vollard Suite and Etching in the Museo ICO Collection gives visibility to the origins of the Museo ICO and the Fundación ICO, showing the artistic treasures it preserves without losing its identity, and offering a glimpse into most consolidated contemporary Spanish art.
The exhibition will also include a total of 54 etchings and 8 paintings by outstanding artists, the majority winners of the National Plastic Arts Prize in the 1980s and 1990s, including Juan Manuel Díaz-Caneja, Manuel Boix, Albert Ràfols-Casamada, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Luis Gordillo, José Hernández, Eduardo Arroyo, Rafael Canogar, Josep Guinovart, Lucio Muñoz, Alfonso Fraile, Manolo Valdés, Darío Villalba, José Caballero, Manuel Hernández Mompó, Juan Genovés, Guillermo Pérez Villalta and Juan Barjola. It is a group of etchings exhibited together with some of the paintings by the same artists, which allow us to appreciate the variety of disciplines they worked in and the stylistic elements common to many of the pieces.
The selection is completed with the series Nine Nocturnal Animals, by Miguel Ángel Campano (National Prize for Plastic Arts 1996) and Dadá Collection, by Fernando Bellver (National Graphic Art Prize 2008).
The exhibition is an invitation to the art-loving public, particularly new generations who have not yet had the opportunity to admire the Vollard Suite and the work of the artists who left a deep impression on the Spanish art scene at the end of the 20th century.
