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Japonisme ◆ Van de Woestyne ◆ E. Laborda Berna-Paul Klee ◆ The Macchiaioli ◆ Abraham Maslow
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Director Jesús Tablate Miquis Editorial director Joaquín Lledó Editorial staff: Ana Rimblas Joaquín Arnáiz Carlos G. Olalla Carlos Villarrubia Federico Echevarría Deputy Advertising Director: Beatriz García-Jimenez Digital Edition Director: Ricardo Serra Segura Design: Julio Molina
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Exhibitions Hilma af Klint / T. O’Neill Darío Regoyos Japonisme The Secret Garden From El Bosco to Tiziano Surrealists Before Surrealism Macchiaioli Gustave Van de Woestyne Eduardo Laborda Bern. Paul Klee Estampa The gardens of the Hudson River
© Images by VEGAP Prepress Preim Degradé Printing Artes Gráficas Palermo S.L. Distribution SGEL Legal Deposit: M-42261-1985 ISSN: 1131-6411 Edited by Album Letras Artes, S.L. C/ Juan Álvarez Mendizabal, 58 Tel. 91 547 97 42 Tel. 91 559 90 27 E-mail: album@albumletrasartes.com
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All the yearly issues of this magazine have been subsidized by the Department of Books, Archives and Libraries for its dissemination in libraries, cultural centers and universities in Spain.
Cover: Van de Woestyne (detail)
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TOUCH ART Tactile Contemplation
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pioneering and innovative technique that enables people to touch artworks, feel them through tact, understand and experience them. Known as Didú, this technique endows images with textures, relief and contours them up to five millimeters thick. The process is developed based on a photograph of the image in high resolution. Then, it is given the most suitable textures and volumes as a guide for a blind person’s hand. Small and apparently insignificant details may suddenly become vital for an understanding of the composition or theme of a particular painting. After many hours working on each image, the right volumes and textures are defined and then printed using a special ink. Five paintings from amongst the masterpieces in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum’s permanent collection have been specially selected and reproduced with this innovative technique developed by Estudios Durero in Bilbao. The paintings chosen are Lot and His Daughters by Gentileschi, El Greco’s The Annunciation, St. Sebastian Healed by the Holy Women by José de Ribera, Mary Cassatt’s Woman Seated with a Child in Her Arms and Lying Figure in Mirror by Francis Bacon. On a permanent basis and within the museum’s accessibility programme, these five paintings, to which we have incorporated a system of audio guides, can also be explored and felt by people with visual disability. In addition to the paintings of the Bilbao
Fine Arts Museum, other projects have been developed. Photographs by Juan Torre, a professional photographer who, after losing 92% of his sight, started to work on a project that particularly focuses on the visually impaired, and who, thanks to this technique, has organized an exhibition with forty portraits of musicians and actors like Fito, Ainhoa Arteta, Miguel Ríos and Luz Casal. A Didú project which, after being presented at the ONCE’s Museum for the Blind in Madrid, has travelled around numerous cities in Spain and Europe. Another project is an exhibition that contains the best of Chema Madoz’ work and will be on display in La Pedrera (Barcelona) until 28th July. The exhibition, comprising photographs filled with games and paradoxes, also incorporates works reproduced with the Didú technique. Sight and touch, a play on sight and touch to discover the hidden poetry in the most common objects. And finally, Coins and Notes from the history of Spain, in exhibition format, within everyone’s reach, for the first time. It is a collection of images with high historical and cultural value that give a different view of the history of Spain. Numismatic art to see and to touch. From November, one of the five paintings from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, José Ribera’s St. Sebastian Healed by the Holy Women, will be on display at the Typhlological Museum, donated by the ONCE Museum and the Estudio Durero to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. 4
DARÍO DE REGOYOS LA AVENTURA IMPRESIONISTA 07|10|13 - 26|01|14
THE ART OF CHEN PENG The Freedom of the Ink and the Spirit of the Image Chinese Cultural Center in Madrid
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hinese painting is said to describe nature while at the same time looking to give some meaning to existence by creating a spiritual world. And the artists, the real ones, are also said to be able to explore the labyrinths of thought and to reflect, thanks to the magic of brushstrokes, the depths of the soul in the delicate and simple grace of a branch, a bird or a flower. In any case, it is obvious that in the work of master Chen Peng, each plant or animal, each detail is the result of his spiritual imagination. Each of his beautiful images is a meditation, a way to access a different world which nonetheless is familiar and close to us. The fifty selected artworks that comprise this exhibition are the works of master Chen Peng over the last years, and which are all considered to be the most outstanding pieces of his career. The painter, who is a master of Bird and Flower Painting from the Faculty of Chinese Painting of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, knows how to combine the rich artistic
tradition of this country with a new singular style f his own. Thus, through his work, the onlookers can enjoy, not only the subtle colours of Chinese contemporary painting, but they can also enjoy its contrasts and proposals. The Chinese Cultural Center is the Chinese Government’s official institution for the promotion of the Chinese language and culture in the world. It is a non for profit organization established by the Chinese Government in the year 2012, in charge of the organization of cultural activities, artistic performances, conferences and activities for the promotion of Chinese culture in general. In addition to an exhibition room, the Cultural Centre of China in Madrid also boasts a library, a large multifunctional auditorium and an art gallery. They also organize Chinese language and Chinese cooking courses as well as Martial Arts courses. The Center is open to everyone, Spanish and Chinese people alike and especially to those interested in Chinese culture. 6
The Anchorage of Alicante, 1881, Rafael Monleón y Torres
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AT THE MUBAG Museum of Fine Arts Gravina, Alicante Edwin Beaton
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n the occasion of its tenth anniversary, the MUBAG has gone back to its origin: to be a museum devoted to the Fine Arts of the city and a cultural reference of the province’s heritage. All through the 19th century, the Council of Alicante has acquired an important role as a patron of the arts. Besides, several historical and cultural events turned the institution into the receiver of some possessions seized during the Mendizabal Disentailment of the year 1835. Undoubtedly, the key date in the creation of the Collection was the year 1863, when the decision was made to support the artistic creation from Alicante through training grants also called pensions for artists to carry on their studies at the Royal Academies of Fine Arts in Madrid and Valencia and, later, in the major centers of world art in Rome and Paris. The collection of paintings from the 19th century was made up with the qualifying exams to obtain the grant as
well as the paintings and sculptures they were obliged to send from abroad. The outstanding students were given the opportunity to continue their studies in Paris or at the Rome Academy, created as an extension of the one of San Fernando in 1873. Students and artists participated in the National Exhibitions with paintings on historical or social themes, to the liking of the painting of the period, winning medals in several categories. Thanks to this, the award-winning artworks like Vicente Poveda y Juan’s Valle de lágrimas, were included in the national collections kept today in such distinguished places like the National Prado Museum. Some of them have been successful beyond the limits of the cultural environment of the province and are the references of nineteenth-century Spanish painting, as is the case of Antonio Gisbert, who was even a director at the Prado Museum. During those years –the last decades of the 19th century- Joaquín Sorolla, 8