Joyous Moments of Leisure

DRAWN FROM PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTIONS, JOAQUÍN SOROLLA’S LUMINOUS WORK DAZZLES AT THE MEADOWS MUSEUM.

BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL

Sun-drenched landscapes, glistening seascapes, and tender portraits are the hallmark of the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. Working in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Sorolla remains one of Spain’s most beloved artists. Honoring the centennial of his death, the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport has proclaimed this year’s commemorations as an Event of Exceptional Public Interest. It is being marked with exhibitions across Sorolla’s homeland.

In Dallas, Spanish Light: Sorolla in American Collections opens this fall at the Meadows Museum. In the exhibition’s only venue, it brings together approximately two dozen works, most of which are on loan from private collections. Coming a decade after the museum’s blockbuster Sorolla and America , this smaller exhibition includes work that is rarely, if ever, seen publicly.

As a premier outpost for Spanish art and culture in the United States, it is apt that the Meadows is part of this centennial celebration. In recognition of its dedication to cross-cultural understanding, the museum was recently honored in Madrid with the prestigious Bernardo de Gálvez Award, bestowed by the Fundación Consejo España - EE.UU.

In that spirit of cooperation, Madrid-based Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the artist’s great-granddaughter, has served as the curator for both exhibitions. “I hope that this small and select exhibition of works by Sorolla from North American private collections...serves to pay homage to the artist in the United States on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of his death, and also to our dear Mark Roglán, who charged me with curating this exhibition,” she states.

Born in Valencia in 1863, Sorolla showed an early aptitude for drawing and painting. As a teenager, he started attracting attention and acquiring awards for his work. He made his first trip to Madrid and the Prado Museum at the age of 18. Here he first encountered the work of the 17th-century painter Diego Velázquez. Its influence would remain with him for life.

Sorolla made his American debut in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. His painting Another Marguerite! earned the sole medal awarded during this event. Now in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, it has remained in this country ever since.

In 1900 he firmly established an international reputation when his work earned the grand prize at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Exhibitions throughout Germany in 1907, and one in London in 1908, cemented his position as a leading contemporary artist. Among the visitors to the London exhibition was the American scholar Archer M. Huntington, whose deep interest in Hispanic studies led to his founding of The Hispanic Society of America (now The Hispanic Museum & Library) in New York City in 1904. After seeing Sorolla’s work, he invited the artist to have an exhibition at this new museum. It was an enormous success, subsequently traveling to Buffalo and Boston, where it was equally popular. Exhibitions in the

Midwest two years later spread his renown into the heartland.

According to Pons-Sorolla, “Without a doubt, the United States was Sorolla’s most important market. Specifically, in 1909 he sold 195 works between New York, Buffalo, and Boston (the Hispanic Society acquired 26) and made 20 portraits, including that of President Taft. In 1911, in Chicago and St. Louis, he also sold numerous works and again painted many portraits. Many paintings were acquired by large American museums and by numerous private collectors.” Many of the works in Spanish Light were acquired from these exhibitions. And while most of them subsequently changed hands, about a quarter of them have remained with the descendants of their original owners.

Aside from his appeal with collectors, Sorolla also befriended prominent artists such as William Merritt Chase and John Singer Sargent, whose styles were compatible with his own. According to Pons-Sorolla, “I believe that Sorolla’s painting were appreciated in the United States because his idols, such as Chase and Sargent, were spiritual disciples of Velázquez, as was Sorolla.” She adds that the joie de vivre captured in his work further appealed to American audiences.

In spite of this, successive waves of disruption in the early 20th century, from the advent of modernism to the horrors of World War I and the eventual stock market crash of 1929, shifted tastes away from images of carefree days spent on sun-splashed beaches. While Sorolla’s work remained beloved in Spain, its popularity declined elsewhere. During this time, American collectors’ earlier acquisitions began reentering the market, with many going into public and private collections in Spain.

Sorolla’s revival stateside began in 1989 when The Painter: Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida opened in New York before traveling to other American cities. Subsequent exhibitions here and abroad led to a new appreciation for the artist’s work. In fact, over the past 20 years, a fair amount of the work that changed hands from American into European collections ended up being reacquired by Americans.

According to Dr. Amanda Dotseth, the Meadows Museum’s Linda P. and William A. Custard Director, “Among the collectors represented in the exhibition, many only started collecting Sorolla recently and now own multiple [works] by the artist.”

The exhibition also includes works from the museum’s permanent collection, including View of Las Pedrizas from El Pardo (1907). Originally sold in the London exhibition in 1908, it was acquired in 1965 by Algur Meadows. In the past 20 years, several more of his works have entered the collection. Joining them is Female Nude, which is on long-term loan from a private collection. With its nod to Velázquez’s The Toilet of Venus (“The Rokeby Venus”), it depicts Sorolla’s wife and muse, Clotilde.

Spain’s turbulent decades following Sorolla’s death clouded his gentler era. But as Dotseth explains, “A bit like his popularity during his lifetime, Sorolla’s appeal has to do with the fact that he represents a vision of Spain that is absolutely contrary to the dark, religious country many saw it as in the modern period. His work is filled with light and often represents joyous moments of leisure.” With thanks to lenders across this country, the captivating beauty of Sorolla’s luminous canvases offer us a glimpse of ultimate contentment. P