BILBAO FINE ARTS MUSEUM

The Museum’s latest Guest Work is a portrait by Jacopo Robusti (Venice 1518/19-1594) better known as Tintoretto, one of the great painters of the Venetian school and one of the Renaissance Masters.
From the collection of the Cerralbo Museum in Madrid, and dated to around 1555, the painting depicts a gentleman, possibly Agostino Doria, a member of one of Genoa’s oldest and most illustrious families. It is a fairly typical Tintoretto portrait, one in which the influence of Titian is clearly discernible. Despite the restrained composition and colour (only the elegant pose and the gold buttons reveal the sitter’s social position), Tintoretto manages to convey great psychological intensity.

"SALA STUDIO (1948-1952). AN ART ADVENTURE IN POSTWAR BILBAO".
February 25 - May 18, 2008

The exhibition explores the story of the Sala Stvdio gallery in Bilbao, which presented new and groundbreaking artists from 1948 to 1952. Directed by Willi Wakonigg (1914—2000), the Gallery organized conferences and concerts, put on plays, ran a film club, as well as exhibiting works by, among others, Jorge Oteiza, Maria Paz Jiménez, Jesús Olasagasti, Menchu Gal, Agustín Ibarrola, Picasso, Vázquez Díaz and André Masson. A selection of 70 artworks giving tantalising view of the major artists who showed at Sala Stvdio during its short lifetime is accompanied by a documentary section, with correspondence, drawings and photographs recording the gallery’s activities.

First presented at the Tate Liverpool in summer 2007, the exhibition is a retrospective of the work of one of the leading representatives of British Pop Art, Peter Blake (Dartford, Kent, 1932). A selection of more than 100 artworks from museums and private collections in the UK, Italy, France, Germany and Japan provides a fascinating overview of his entire career, from the earliest works in the mid-1950s to the present day. The paintings, drawings and engravings included in the show highlight Blake’s extraordinary range of images, which includes references from contemporary popular culture (boxers, actors, musicians, mass media, advertising and comics) and from the history of art, the British tradition and his own life.

"BASQUE ARTISTS.BILBAO FINE ARTS MUSEUM COLLECTION".
February 11- May 25, 2008

Holder of the finest collection of works by Basque artists, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum has organized this exhibition to highlight this now traditional feature of its collection and the Basque artists who actively supported the Museum’s creation and development: Manuel Losada, for example, was the first director of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, from 1908 to 1948, and Aurelio Arteta, the first director of the Museum of Modern Art from 1924 to 1942. Today’s Museum was created from the merger of the two. But many other painters and sculptors have cooperated at different times in directing the Museum or through donations of works. Coinciding with the publication of an original Guide to Basque Artists in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the exhibition, in the Museum’s centenary year, is both a tribute to the institution and witness to how many leading local artists hailed the Museum’s arrival and subsequent work.

"FROM GOY TO GAUGUIN. THE 19TH CENTURY AT THE BILBAO FINE ARTS MUSEUM".
June 16 - September 28, 2008

Begun nearly a century ago, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum’s valuable collection of 19th century paintings and sculptures today numbers more than three hundred artworks. The painstaking selection of 66 artworks by 47 artists included in the exhibition covers a remarkable variety of modes of artistic expression including the cabinet painting, realist landscapes, portraits and paintings of popular and historical scenes. The selection includes artworks by some leading names in the international art world, from Goya, Cézanne and Gauguin to Madrazo, Sorolla and Picasso. Also included are works by a substantial group of Basque artists, such as Guiard, Regoyos, Iturrino and Zuloaga, among others.

Included in this exhibition are twenty-five books from the Bancaja Collection, each of which provides an insight into the most important aspects of a little-known facet of the artist’s activity. Picasso produced illustrations for books by several major writers in what were conceived as very special editions, often for a highly select public. The artist employed a wide variety of techniques to illustrate works by a broad range of authors, from the Greek classics to contemporaries, acting as sole artist-illustrator or sharing the task of illustrating with others. He was equally happy working for the most powerful publishers or disinterestedly for friends.

"SOROLLA. A VISION OF SPAIN. THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA COLLECTION".
October 13, 2008 - January 18, 2009

Sorolla. A Vision of Spain. The Hispanic Society of America Collection includes fourteen murals produced by Sorolla between 1912 and 1919, in which he portrays his vision of the people and customs in a number of Spanish regions of the time. Commissioned by Archer Milton Huntington, founder of the Hispanic Society of New York, the paintings were destined for the Society’s reading gallery. This is the first time they have been removed from their original location. Each panel is 3,5 metres high and the entire cycle is 60 metres long. The murals are on a two years loan to Bancaja for inclusion in a travelling exhibition to a number of Spanish cities, including Valencia, Seville, Málaga, Bilbao, Barcelona and Madrid.

"PAPEL ART (VIII). XIX-XX CENTURIES. CÉZANNE TO LÉGER. BILBAO FINE ARTS MUSEUM COLLECTION".
December, 2008

The seventh edition of Art On Paper continues with the original idea for the programme of studying the artworks executed on paper in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum collection. For the latest edition, the spotlight will fall on artists working at the turn of the century, including Cezanne, Guiard, Regoyos, Iturrino, La Fresnaye, Marcoussis, Baroja, Roualt and Zuloaga. Artists who broke with 19th century tradition to concentrate on the channels being explored by the avant-garde artists of the early 20th century.

Curated by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez and Benito Navarrete, the exhibition will include fifty or so works by the young Murillo (Seville, 1617-82) from a crucial period in his career, one represented—through some particularly fine works—in the collections of both Bilbao and Seville Fine Arts Museums: St. Peter Weeping (c.1650-55) and St. Lesmes (c. 1655) in Bilbao, and St Francis (c.1645-50) and San Jerome (c. 1665-75) in Seville. Around 1640 Murillo achieved his first artistic successes, launching a career in the ascendant. During this early period Murillo produced an oeuvre marked by a taste for tenebrism and naturalism, a reflection of the durable influence of masters from the previous generation, like Zurbarán and Ribera, particularly in the way he plays with the light and dark and his close observation of his subject.

"THE GUEST WORK".
January 11 - March 30, 2008

This is a spectacular view of the inner courtyard of the Palace of the Dux of Venice, facing the San Marcos Basilica. The latter’s domes, silhouetted against a totally clear, brilliant blue sky, are seen behind the splendid palace architecture which, in turn, is bathed in the light of a radiant sun that sharply outlines its reliefs in intense chiaroscuro. Rico takes special care to include small figures whose clothing and movements are painted with extreme delicacy. In a highly unusual format for the artist, this picture was painted in 1883, during the artist’s period of full maturity. It bears witness yet again to the special seduction exercised by the city of Venice on Martín Rico. His superb talent for urban landscapes was achieved by means of clean, accurate drawing, the fruit of his very sharp observation of life interpreted through the luminous preciosity learned from his great friend Mariano Fortuny.

"20TH CENTURY ART COLLECTION".
January 21 - March 2, 2008

An exceptional set of artworks from an anonymous local art collector who has deposited the works in the Museum for an initial period of five years. Altogether, the show comprises 63 artworks (48 paintings and 15 sculptures) by 46 leading 20th century artists, although the collection also has a number of works from the 19th and the 21st centuries. Some illustrious names on the list of artists involved (Sorolla, Nonell, Kandinsky, Torres García, Julio González, Picabia, Klee, Picasso, Blanchard, Gleizes, Léger, Braque, Metzinger, Gris, Solana, Chagall, De Chirico, Ernst, Miró, Dalí, Domínguez, Palazuelo, Tàpies, Chillida, Millares, Saura, Gordillo, Serra, Cragg, Navarro, Kapoor and Barceló) give a fair idea of the scope and interest of this exhibition.

"PAPER ART (VI).THE BILBAO FINE ARTS MUSEUM COLLECTION. THE 19 CENTURY".
November 19, 2007 - February 17, 2008

PAPER ART presents a series of monographic exhibitions devoted to work on paper. Some of the works belong to the Museum’s collection and some are from other collections. On exhibit on this particular occasion will be the second part of the 19th century works from the Museum’s collection, with drawings, water colours and engravings by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Rosa Bonheur, Mariano Fortuny, Adolfo Guiard, Ricardo Baroja, Anselmo Guinea and Darío de Regoyos, among others.

"ACQUISITIONS 02/07".
December 10, 2007 - February 10, 2008

Within the framework of the agreement on collaboration with BBVA aimed at giving greater value to the Museum’s collection through new acquisitions, this exhibition presents all the works purchased between 2002 and 2007. There are almost 90 works and among them can be found those of artists included for the first time in the collection -Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, R.B. Kitaj, Peter Blake, John Davies, Miquel Barceló, Markus Lüpertz, Jacques Lipchitz, Juan Luis Moraza or Darío Urzay- and those of others, whose presence has been complemented with new works -Eduardo Zamacois, Vicente López, Jorge Oteiza, Eduardo Chillida, Vicente Ameztoy, Juan José Aquerreta, Amable Arias, Txomin Badiola, Luis Fernández, Pablo Palazuelo or Alfonso Gortázar-

"POUSSIN AND NATURE".
October 8, 2007 - January 13, 2008

Landscapes played an important part in the works of Nicolás Poussin (1594-1665), from his first Roman works between 1624 and 1630 up to his final years. The exhibition includes eighty works which will enable the public to understand both Poussin’s evolution in style and the transformation of his aesthetic thinking when confronting nature sometimes wild and sometimes domestic, which he depicted like few artists of his time. The scientific management of the project is the responsibility of one of the most reputed specialists in the French painter’s work, Pierre Rosenberg, honorary President-Curator of the Louvre, who has prepared a selection of paintings and drawings which will present Poussin’s contribution to landscape painting for the first time in Spain and the United States .

"BETWEEN PICASSO AND DUBUFFET. JEAN-PALQUE COLLECTION".
September 17 - November 18, 2007

The exhibition includes 130 outstanding works of the Swiss collector, Jean Planque (1910-1998), a passionate connoisseur who was assessor to the prestigious Beyeler Art Gallery in Basel. Among those represented are some of the most important artists of the past century - Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Jean Dubuffet, Paul Gauguin, Juan Gris, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger, Manolo Millares, Claude Monet, Pablo Palazuelo, Pablo Picasso, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Rouault, Antoni Tàpies, and Vincent Van Gogh.

"SYNCHRONIZING GEOMETRY. CARLOS FERRATER & PARTNERS (OAB)".
June 18 - September 2, 2007

The exhibition in the Bilbao Art Museum of the works from Carlos Ferrater & partners’ studio (OAB) constitutes a more extensive version of that of September 2006 in the S. R. Crown Hall of the School of Architecture of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago.
Synchronizing geometry. Carlos Ferrater & partners (OAB) offers an extensive insight into the works produced by this architectural studio from 1996 to the present time. The exhibition comprises thirty four explanatory panels in which all the project processing regarding the works and projects can be seen in detail. Furthermore, twelve scale models are presented to show the different stages of the various work projects and the relationship between stereometric geometries and construction as well as the inner parts of those processes.
Over the last few years, the Carlos Ferrater studio has intermittently yet continuously developed new lines of formal expression. A set of projects which go to form a family of autonomous experiences faithful to the same principle of project approach: geometry as a means of approaching landscape and urban shapes.

"KISS KISS BANG BANG. 45 YEARS OF ART AND FEMINISM".
June 11 - September 9, 2007

The exhibition, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. 45 years of Art and Feminism shows 69 works and 36 artists and 3 feminist groups from various countries which initiated and/or have continued to give substance to what has come to be known as “feminist art”.
In turn, the title of the exhibition -Kiss Kiss Bang Bang-, manifests the contradictions and disparities brought about among the stereotypes that have been created with respect to women in patriarchal cultures and the reality of a group that has fought against them relentlessly. The intention is to create a confrontation between the traditional idea of femininity and women, their sexual objectivization in the field of culture -Kiss Kiss-, and the other reality: woman as an active and enterprising subject and a relentless fighter for the achievement of the status of first class citizen -Bang Bang-.

"THE SPANISH PORTRAIT IN THE PRADO MUSEUM. FROM EL GRECO TO GOYA"
March 5 - May 20, 2007

The Prado Museum possesses one of the most important collections devoted to the portrait genre and includes works by El Greco, Morales, Sánchez Coello, Pantoja de la Cruz, Carreño de Miranda, Velázquez, Murillo, Claudio Coello, Paret, Luca Giordano, Mengs and Goya, among many others. The sixty two paintings selected for the exhibition of thirty six artists from the 16th century to the 18th century show the development of the genre and its various typologies over three centuries. Furthermore, this exhibition will be complemented with another, which will be held in the BBK Hall of Culture (c/Elcano, 20, Bilbao), entitled The Spanish portrait in the Prado Museum. from Goya to Sorolla, devoted to the evolution of the genre during the 19th century.

THE GUEST WORK.
February 5, 2007 - April 15, 2007

Converting nature into landscape required a special insight and the ability to produce optical perceptions in another way. If we compare the landscape painting inaugurated by Carlos de Haes (1826-1898) with that which was immediately prior to it, we can see that the latter was a genuine awakening. However, these years were also characterised by their capacity for paradox and confusion: on the one hand there still existed a world –of clear romantic touches- which never seemed to disappear and on the other, and coexisting with the former, and the impersonal objectiveness of the new realist tendency, which were poles apart and which believed that natural forms were expressive in themselves and would directly convey their meanings to the painting without the need to resort to convention.
But, curiously enough, this canvas - Paisaje oriental (Oriental landscape), 1883- which we now have the opportunity to present and which was one of the last ones painted by the artist (1883), could be a clear exponent of the contradiction: although the landscape is captured in a naturalist manner and a great luminosity and chromatic richness takes over from the sombre colouring of his first period, his subject matter and vision is still seen to be contaminated by a certain romantic nostalgia.

"GUTIÉRREZ SOLANAIN THE MAPFRE COLLECTIONS"
February 12 - March 17, 2007

Solana (Madrid, 1886-1945) is a continuator of the aesthetics of Black Spain, and his work is connected with Spanish baroque painting and, above all, with the Goya of the Black Paintings, who influenced his choice of palette with its blacks, ochres and brownish-greys. As well as a painter he was also a costumbrist writer and engraver. The exhibition includes 6 canvases, 25 etchings and 4 lithographs. The paintings, dated between 1917 and 1938, belong to the artist’s period of maturity and depict popular religious rites, death or carnivals, which were Solana’s favourite themes. As far as the engravings are concerned, they remind us of various paintings by the artist, as is the case of the famous On the game and Workshop of Masks, which form part of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum’s collection.

"OUT! SERENE SHADOWS! THE VISUAL ASPECT OF THE VERDI SPECTACLE".
January 16, 2007 - February 18, 2007

ABAO, together with the National Institute of Verdi Studies in Parma, and the collaboration of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum presents the exhibition: Out! Serene shadows! The visual aspect of the Verdi spectacle.
This exhibition forms part of the cultural activities of the project entitled, “Tutto Verdi” initiated by the Asociación Bilbaína (the Bilbao Association) this season, 2006/2007 and which consists not only of the representation of the whole of Verdi’s operas in all their versions but also of a parallel cultural project drawn up to examine in greater detail the work of this composer, who is one of the most popular of all times.
This exhibition, which may be visited at the Bilbao Art Museum from January 16th to February 18th, 2007, offers a wide view of the various visual interpretations that have been represented in the contemporary era of Giuseppe Verdi and at later dates. We have endeavoured to underline the importance that the composer gave to scenography and offer a vision with the stage interpretations of the Maestro’s operas set in a historical perspective. This influence exerted by Verdi is clear even when he is not physically present; when the artist who develops the stage aspect takes the musical score as a point of reference and translates the contemporary visual language, Verdi’s dramatico-musical conception is immediately captured by present-day audiences.

"ZAMACOIS - FORTUNY - MEISSONIER".
October 16, 2006 - January 18, 2007

Eduardo Zamacois (Bilbao, 1841 - Madrid, 1871) began his schooling with the painter José Balaca. In 1859, he moved to Madrid to attend classes at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Art. In 1860, he moved to Paris where he studied with Ernest Meissonier, the most well-known painter of the genre at that time, and where he established relationships with the most important artists and intellectuals of the time, such as Cabanel, Gérôme, Bonnat or Alejandro Dumas, Junior.
In 1866, he met Mariano Fortuny, whose paintings were already widely appreciated. Zamacois helped him to get onto the Parisian artistic circuits and a close professional and personal relationship was established between both painters.
The art dealer, Adolphe Goupil, introduced Zamacois into the Parisian art market and he found favour with wealthy clients, such as Princess Matilde Bonaparte, the prince and princess Metternech. The culmination of his successful career in Paris was in 1870, when he obtained the Gold Medal del Salón Oficial with the painting The Education of a Prince. A year later the Franco-Prussian war forced him to abandon France and he settled Madrid, where he died at the early age of twenty nine in 1871.
The exhibition organized by the Museum is the first one devoted to the painter and it will include approximately fifty of his works from private collections and European and American museums, such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Clark Art Institute of Massachusetts, the Prado Museum or the collection of Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. The works are small-format water colours and oil paintings which mainly represent scenes of the genre where the subjects are literary, historical and of local customs and manners.
Viewing the work of Zamacois with a choice of paintings of his master, Ernest Meissonier (Lyon, 1815 - Paris, 1891), and his colleague, Mariano Fortuny (Reus, 1838 - Rome, 1874) will help us to situate his career in a context and better understand Zamacois’ artistic value.

PAPER ART (IV) CARLOS DE HAES. DRAWINGS AND ENGRAVINGS. THE BILBAO FINE ARTS MUSEUM COLLECTION.
November 13, 2006 - January 28, 2007

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826–Madrid, 1898) is one of the most important landscape artists in the second half of the 19th century. From the San Fernando School of Art in Madrid his influence was felt by Aureliano de Beruete, Jaime Morera, and Darío de Regoyos, among others, and in the renovation of the landscape genre in Spanish paintings.
Thanks to the Paper Art programme over fifty of Haes’s paintings and drawings, which belong to the Museum’s collection, will now be exhibited. Evocations from memory or from nature, preparatory sketches, exercises of the hand, notes taken during travels, drawings for engravings, these works give a most intimate view of the painter’s work through popular landscapes.

"THE GUEST WORK".
October 9, 2006 - 28 January, 2007

Depicted in the painting is the interior of a shop which has been interpreted on occasions as a simple "warehouse of fabrics" or as an antique shop. In front of the counter, a young woman wearing a white mantilla absent-mindedly contemplates a lace fan which she is holding in her hands. At her side, a servant is holding a little boy in her arms and on the other side a gentleman seated on a footstool appears to be paying the owner. Other characters behind the counter appear to be browsing and one is reaching up to put a piece of cloth in a cupboard.
It is without doubt one of Paret’s masterpieces and has been widely recognised as such. It is brimming with liveliness, the spirit of observation of everyday life and the delicate charm which form part of the essence of his style.

URRESTI COLLECTION.
September 22 - November 5, 2006

The Urresti Collection is made up of one hundred and twelve works by artists typically preferred by collectors from our social and cultural environment: basically artists from the Basque Country, Catalonia and Madrid from the turn of the century up until the 1960s.
The Museum has organized this exhibition with the dual aim of acquainting the public with this interesting private heritage and as a mark of gratitude for the generous donation in 2004 of three works which belonged to the Urresti collection to the Museum’s collection: El río Isole (Quimperlé) (The River Isole [Quimperlé]) by Aureliano de Beruete, Paisaje (Landscape) by Joaquim Mir and Río (River) by Celso Lagar.
This is yet another example of the close collaboration of private collectors in the shaping and enrichment of the Bilbao Art Museum’s artistic heritage.

PAPER ART (III). CREATION OF LIGHT. JOHN MARTIN (1789-1854). PRINTS AND DRAWINGS FROM THE CAMPBELL COLLECTION.
July 17 - October 1, 2006

We present the first monograph in our country dedicated to the English painter and engraver, John Martin (Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, 1789–Douglas, Isle of Man, 1854), one of the most outstanding romanticist artists and one of the foremost exponents of the aesthetics of the sublime, which seeks to arouse the viewer’s emotions through the representation of the supernatural and the unbridled power of nature. He succeeded in capturing this concept in his painting and especially in his engravings of great complexity as far as composition, thanks to his command of the mezzotint technique, with intense black as its base makes the whites of the shapes and objects stand out with very precise touches of light.

A MULTIPLE LOOK
June 30 - September 24, 2006

A multipe look is an exhibition which will be held with works from the Museum’s own collection and it includes international works from the second half of the 20th century. Its title alludes to the wide variety of artistic movements arising once the Second World War had ended. This exhibition has made it possible to display artistic material which is not normally found on show and at the same time demonstrates what a rich collection the museum possesses. The visitor will be able to embark on an attractive journey through the fertile and varied artistic period that came to an end at the turn of the century and during which abstraction and realism co-existed as did geometry and the informalist art of material and gestural calligraphy.

"KASIMIR MALÉVICH".
July 10 - September 10, 2006

The exhibition presents over one hundred works by Kasimir Malevich (Kiev, 1878 - Leningrad, 1935) with the aim of offering a deep insight into the artist’s work, showing paintings, drawings, books, etc. Included are impressionist sketches, and the idealized images of the world of the peasant, which he produced between 1911 and 1912, and special attention is paid to his cube-futuristic works.
The exhibition also shows the preparatory drawings for the futuristic opera, Victory over the sun which was the preceding step towards total abstraction, as well as several suprematist works which are representative of non-figuration, including the emblematic Black Square from the State Museum, St. Petersburg, and a large number of post-suprematist works. The selection finishes with the enigmatic return of Malevich in the 1930s to the theme of peasant farmers and figuration.
His architectural projects, from the National Museum of Modern Art - Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the State Museum of St. Petersburg and private collections will also be shown.
The exhibition will also provide us with a unique opportunity to see works from numerous international museums and collections such as the State Museum of St. Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the National Museum of Modern Art - Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Theatre and Literature Museum of St. Petersburg, the Kustodiev Art Gallery of Astrakhan, the Nizhny Novgorod Art Museum, the Yekaterinburg Art Museum, the Ivanovo Regional Art Museum and the Thessalonica State Museum of Contemporary Art.
With the aim of showing Malevich’s various stages and styles before suprematism, works from a great number of provincial Russian museums and private collections have been gathered together. As a result, numerous original works and documents of great interest which until now were little known have been obtained.

"THE GUEST WORK".
June 12 - 17 September, 2006

The Santander Group’s outstanding collection includes mainly paintings but also sculptures and decorative arts dating from the 16th century to the present day. The tapestries are of special interest as there are some outstanding pieces from the Brussels Manufacture from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, from the Gobelins Manufacture from the 17th and 18th centuries and a tapestry from Beauvais from 1700. For this occasion, we have chosen a tapestry woven from wool and silk around 1575, when the splendour of the Flemish production of tapestries was at its peak. In it can be seen an episode from the well-known History of Alexander, which offers the renaissance view of one of the favourite themes of gothic tapestries.

"FROM HERRERA TO VELÁZQUEZ. THE FIRST NATURALIST IN SEVILLA".
March 20 - June 18, 2006

With over sixty works, some of which may be seen in our country for the first time, the exhibition takes a look at the contribution made by Sevillian paintings from the 17th century to baroque naturalist art, which originated from the tenebrism of Caravaggio and his followers, the maximum expression of which can be seen in the work of the young Velázquez. The artistic stage was situated in the first quarter of the 17th century, in Seville, which at that time was a cosmopolitan, booming city, a meeting point for collectors, painters, patrons of the arts and travellers. In this way, there was a mixing of contributions from Flemish painting and Italian influences which gave rise to an especially vigorous artistic period.
The exhibition shows key works of the time which have been selected by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, the Honorary Curator of the Prado Museum, and by Professor Benito Navarrete. Among them may be found outstanding works by Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Herrera el Viejo, Tristán, Ribera, Zurbarán, Velázquez and Alonso Cano.
Without the collaboration of the Prado Museum, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña (the National Art Museum of Catalonia), the National Gallery in London, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Budapest Museum, the Berlin Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, together with other institutions and collectors, who have loaned the Bilbao Art Museum outstanding works from their collections, this extraordinarily interesting exhibition would not have been possible.

"The guest work".
Beach at Portici is one of the most outstanding paintings by Mariano Fortuny (Reus, Tarragona, 1838-Rome, 1874). It is a scene in the plein air in which the figures and the landscape blend together under the intense southern light. Fortuny intensifies the effects of light and air sought by situating the horizon at a very low level thus giving greater importance to the sky, of an intense blue only occasionally interrupted by brilliant clouds. Apart from being one of the few examples of the landscape genre among Fortuny’s work, Beach at Portici incorporates the sea as an iconographic novelty. The importance of the work and the few occasions on which it has been exhibited to the public make this latest edition of The Guest Work Programme especially interesting.

"The guest work".
January 16 - March 31, 2006

The aim of The Guest Work Programme is to acquaint the general public with outstanding works from other museums and collections. Belonging to the National Sculpture Museum in Valladolid are two polychrome wood reliefs of the superb Alterpiece of San Benito el Real by Alonso Berruguete (Paredes de Nava, Palencia, 1489-Toledo, 1561). After returning from Italy, the artist produced these works, which combined medieval elements, such as expressive dramatism or the symbolic use of gold backgrounds with a new spirit arising from classical language, present in the fluency of the landscape and in the search for a natural characterisation of personages and realism in narration.

"LECTURES. EL BOSCO AND THE PICTORICAL TRADITION ON THE FANTASTIC AT THE PRADO MUSEUM".
January 11 - March 3, 2006

The course will approach in eight conferences the analysis of its work as well as the complexity of meaning that provokes the fantastic universe imagined by the painter. Lecturers: Francisco Calvo Serraller (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Valeriano Bozal (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Gonzalo Borrás Gualis (Universidad de Zaragoza), Walter S. Gibson (Case Western Reserve University, Ohio), Joaquín Yarza (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona), Manuela Mena Marqués (Museo Nacional del Prado), Agustín Sánchez Vidal (Universidad de Zaragoza), Pilar Silva (Museo Nacional del Prado).

"The guest work".
September 19, 2005 - January 8, 2006

David Hockney (Bradford, West Yorks, 1937) is one of the most internationally renowned contemporary British artists. Some neat cushions was painted in 1967 in London. The origin of the work is a small drawing made by Hockney in California, which served as notes, as it were, for the painting of the canvas which was the final result. As in other works of this period, it depicts, in acrylic, the elegant interior of a home. The painting, which is at once simple and sophisticated, shows a predominance of formal values, as if Hockney had been taken by surprise by the fascination caused by the clear light, the chromatic elegance and the balance between the simple volumes of the room

"BRITISH POP".
October 17, 2005 - February 12, 2006.

The exhibition being prepared by the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao will be by far the most comprehensive survey of British Pop Art ever presented. With approximately 75 paintings and sculptures and a separate section of more than 30 graphic works (editioned prints, collages and drawings) by 20 artists, it will provide a comprehensive overview of the themes, imagery and processes employed by the leading practitioners of the period. The exhibition is being curated by Marco Livingstone, whose extensive publications on Pop Art, have made him a leading international authority on the movement.

"Paper Art (II). Picasso: Trunk of Remorse".
September 12, - November 6, 2005

The Caisse B remords or Caja de remordimientos (Trunk of Remorse) is one of the most relevant series of Picasso as an engraver.This is a series of forty five prints, including etchings, dry-points and soft varnishes. This collection highlights Picasso’s technical skill, the various styles with which he experimented -cubism, surrealism, neoclassicism, etc.- and many of the subjects he was interested in throughout his career and they have in common the fact that he created and kept the prints from 1919 to 1955. For this reason, these works have been regarded by some specialists as a sort of autobiography of Picasso.

"PARÍS AND THE SURREALISTS".
June 20 - September 18, 2005.

The exhibition aims to set the artistic and intellectual atmosphere of Paris during the inter-war period in the context of the emergence of Surrealism, one of the fundamental creative movements of the 20th century. 270 works of art, selected by the art critic, Victoria Combalía, will attempt to draw the public closer to its transgressive character, the relationship between creators and disciplines, its complex relationship with politics and its subsequent influence. Among the artists chosen are André Breton, Yves Tanguy, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Arp, Oscar Domínguez, Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Meret Oppenheim, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Dora Maar and Joan Miró.

"THE GUEST WORK".
Hierros de temblor II (Trembling Irons II)(1956) is one of the most significant works in wrought iron from the first mature years and indeed the whole career of the sculptor, Eduardo Chillida (San Sebastián, 1924-2002), and it forms part of the group of sculptures which made his work known and laid the foundations for his early international success. Acquired by the Museum in 2003, the work is exhibited on the occasion of the Guest Work Programme accompanied by Hierros de temblor (Trembling Irons I) (1955) and Hierros de temblor III (Trembling Irons III) (1957), which belong to two private collections. The three works together form an outstanding sequence in which the cut and the torsion of the iron come to be essential elements in the development of Chillida’s spatial interests.
April 25 - June 26, 2005.

"DANIEL VÁZQUEZ DÍAZ 1882-1969".
Commissioned by the art historians, Jaime Brihuega and Isabel García, this retrospective exhibition, aims at reviewing the work of the painter, Daniel Vázquez Díaz (1882-1969), a key figure in Spanish artistic culture of the first half of the 20th century and a fundamental reference for most of the leading avant-garde artists and artists of the reformist movement of the 1920s and the 1930s. The exhibition will comprise some hundred oil paintings and will also include a large section of drawings and documentary material (photographs, manuscripts, etc.). Catalogue: Shop/Publications
February 21 - May 29, 2005.

THE GUEST WORK". Van Dyck (Amberes, 1598 – London, 1641)
February 14 - April 3, 2005.

"THE BALERDI DONATION".
December 2, 2004 - April 28, 2005.

"John Davies. Sculptures and Drawings since 1968".
October 18, 2004 - January 23, 2005.

"GUSTAVE DORÉ. WORKS BELONGING TO THE MUSEÉ D'ART MODERNE ET CONTEMPORAIN DE STRASBOURG". Ilustration. Engravings.
October 4 - December 12, 2004.

GABRIEL RAMOS URANGA.
August 9 - November 28, 2004.

"From Ingres to Cézanne. The 19th century in the collection of the Petit Palais".
June 28 - September 19, 2004.

"Kitaj. Spain in me".
May 31 - August 2, 2004.

"Juan de Echevarría".
April 19 - June 27, 2004.

"The City that Never Was. Fantasy Architecture in Western Art".
February 23 - May 30, 2004.
The exhibition takes as its starting point the genre of the architectural capriccio (caprice) the architectural whin genre and its development between the 16th and 18th centuries and offers a tour of the theme of fantastic or unreal architecture through a selection of artists and works from different periods beginning with Pompeii frescos and concluding with contemporary installations.
The architectural capriccio came to being in the 16th century as a minor artistic genre directed towards the representation of "impossible" architecture, i.e., buildings and spaces which may have really existed but which were shown in a way that afforded them a fantastic character, and it enjoyed its period of splendour in the 17th and 18th centuries. Before the genre appeared on the scene, urban and architectural images had merely served as a background or framework for sacred scenes. When it appeared, there were artists who faithfully portrayed real buildings and towns and there were others who, on the other hand, were responsible for manifestly fantastic architecture or who gave real buildings and towns a fantastic appearance. The exhibition shows the development and the splendour of this genre through the works of Vredeman de Vries, Van Delen, Monsú Desiderio, Matías de Torres, Francisco Gutiérrez, or Codazzi, among others, and of its culmination during the 18th century at the hands of Ricci, Marieschi, Bellotto, Guardi or Vernet.
But the architectural capriccio existed well into the 19th century and, in the exhibition, there are examples of this by Spilliaert, Deshayes, Pérez Villaamil or Victor Hugo. Even some of the first, historic, avant-garde artists such as De Chirico, Sironi, Ernst or Delvaux, were fascinated by unreal architecture. The city that never was shows that the interest for urban spaces and buildings of a fantastic nature still survives in cintemporary art, as can be seen in the works of Navarro, Ballester, Iglesias, Yass or Janssens, Which form part of this exhibition.
The exhibition is divided into seven thematic parts, which include works and artists from different periods. In each part, some of the aspects which characterise the representetions of fantastic and imaginary architecture stand out:
I Otherwordly architectures: towns and architecture of the world of the dead.
II Architectures of legend: buildings and towns of a legendary past.
III Ambiguous spaces. Inside or outside?: spaces where the boundaries between the interior and the exterior are diluted.
IV Cursed cities: towns which cause the loss of their inhabitants instead of protecting their life.
V At the frontiers of the inhabited: isolated, built-up areas in the face of ever-menacing Nature.
VI Architectures of excess: architecture of impossible structures.
VII (Im) pasable architectures: real, built-up areas but which, paradoxically, cannot be travelled through.

"THE GUEST WORK".
November 3, 2003 - February 22, 2004.

"The splendor of GenoVa. Paintings from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in Palazzo Bianco’s collection".
October 20, 2003 - January 18, 2004.

"Amable Arias. Sketches de lo invisible".
June 23 - September 21, 2003.

"Angel Larroque".
Until September 28, 2003.

"Bartolomé Bermejo and his period".
June 9 - August 31, 2003.

"Jacques Lipchitz". Drawings and Sculptures
March 10 - June 1, 2003.

"Bilbao in illustrated periodicals (1843 - 1900)"
February 14 - May 4, 2003.

"Sleepers". Abbas Kiarostami
Until March 2, 2003.

"Museo, un espacio transformado". Patxi Cobo
November 11, 2002 - February 2, 2003.

"Malas Formas". Txomin Badiola
September 28, 2002 - January 26, 2003.

"Julio Romero de Torres".
October 7, 2002 - January 26, 2003.

"Vicente López. La invención de un cuadro de historia"
July 1 - October 20, 2002.

"Del amor y la muerte". Dibujos y Grabados
June 17 - September 12, 2002.

"Ciudad Abierta, Fotografía Urbana 1950-2000". Photography.
From February 18, 2002 to May 12, 2002.

"Gaur, Hemen, Orain".
Until May 5, 2002.

ESTEBAN VICENTE
EL COLOR ES LA LUZ
Until August, 2001

PINTURA AL DESNUDO
Until August, 2001

ADDRESS:
	Plaza del Museo 2. 48011 Bilbao. Tel. (+34) 94 439 60 60 Fax. 94 439 61 45 Education: 94 439 61 41 E-mail: info@museobilbao.com web: www.museobilbao.com
OPENING HOURS:
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	The new museum, Past and Present		Collections and exhibitions in the new season