The fervor for Sorolla is revived on the centenary of his death

Few artists in history enjoy the popularity and fervor that Joaquín Sorolla (Valencia, 1863 — Cercedilla, 1923) achieved in life.

Not only was he very soon a prophet in his land, but in the first decade of the last century he swept the main cities of the world with exhibitions in which he exhibited an unusual number of works.

Some examples are worth mentioning: in his 1906 Paris exhibition, 497 paintings were shown;

in Berlin, the following year, 280;

and in 1909, in New York, 356. The master of light and color, as he soon began to be known inside and outside of Spain, acquired such relevance and power that national cainism did not stop criticizing him for going against the current at the beginning of the century in which the great artistic revolutions were taking place without rest.

When they didn't compare him to Pablo Picasso.

Now,

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Sorolla had his dark side

The first exhibition opened last Monday at the Sorolla Museum in Madrid, one of the obligatory pilgrimage centers for admirers of the artist and his world.

What was the home of the painter's family permanently exhibits some 1,500 works.

The exhibition to celebrate the anniversary is titled

.

Here we explore the path of difficulties that the Valencian avoided until he became one of the most nationally and internationally successful painters in Spain over the centuries.

When he was only two years old, the cholera epidemic that devastated the city in 1865 left him an orphan and he was welcomed, along with his sister Concha, by his maternal uncles, Isabel Bastida Prat and José Piqueres, who gave them warmth and affection and guided their first Steps.

The exhibition continues with the beginnings of the painter in his native Valencia, his training at the Schools of Craftsmen and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos, a time during which he combined drawing classes with work in the locksmith's workshop from his uncle Jose.

Curated by Luis Alberto Pérez Velarde, from March the exhibition will travel to Valencia.

The room of the Museo del Prado where the portrait he made of Manuel Bartolomé Cossío is exhibited.efe

Origins

is the confirmation that he would soon become the prolific and popular artist who invented a peculiar impressionism thanks to his vision of light and color.

That one got that in New York, almost 170,000 people attended one of his exhibitions at the Hispanic Society of America during a single month, February 1909, according to the chronicles of

.

In the pages of the newspaper it was told when Sorolla returned to Spain he could boast, with good reason, of having made the Americas.

He had sold 195 paintings and had signed portraits of President William Howard Taft and other prominent American personalities at the time.

On his next visit to the United States, in 1911, he received no fewer than 54 portrait commissions from powerful citizens.

The work was so great that some of these requests were finished off after returning to Madrid.

the other festivities

The Council of Ministers has yet to approve the National Commission, in charge of organizing and coordinating the festivities.

From what has come out of that still open program, an anthology is ruled out.

In 2009, the Prado Museum dedicated a large exhibition to Sorolla.

Then, 102 paintings were gathered, 20% unpublished, to portray him as a painter fully installed in the modernity of the 20th century, situated at the level of the great Spanish masters represented in the museum: Velázquez, Goya or El Greco.

But with such a productive artist (more than 4,000 inventoried works) and so recognized throughout the world, there are many aspects that remain to be revealed throughout the two years that the commemoration of his death will last, 2023 and 2024.

One of the works in the exhibition 'Sorolla.

Origins', in the Museum of the painter in Madrid.

Borja Sanchez Trillo (EFE)

For this reason, the Prado, which has 23 paintings by Sorolla, has organized a new exhibition, this time focused on his portraits.

Two new pieces are included in the proposal, the portrait of

recently acquired by the art gallery (80,000 euros) and that of

(20,000), loaned by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.

Both works left Spain during the Civil War and have remained in Oxford until the museum bought them from Cossío's great-grandchildren, in a joint operation between the two institutions.

When the exhibition concludes, Cossío de Sorolla's portrait will hang in the permanent collection alongside

El Greco's

Javier Barón, head of Conservation of 19th Century Painting, explained that the prices of Sorolla's work range from a very wide range: from 10,000 euros to one million.

The expert acknowledges that there are still dubious attributions in the market, but that suspicious transactions are increasingly rare.

In the absence of an anthology, the closest thing will be the exhibition jointly organized by the María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia starting on June 29.

It will bring together close to fifty pieces from the Masaveu collection that offer a global journey through the author's career, with canvases dating from 1882, when he was still a 19-year-old young man in the middle of his training, and 1917, three years before his death.

La Masaveu is the private collection with the largest number of pieces by the artist and the third in volume and importance worldwide, only surpassed by that of two other public institutions such as the Sorolla Museum and the Hispanic Society of America.

Sorolla's anniversary has also served as a pretext for the opening of a new space in Barcelona: the Palau Martorell, a multi-purpose room that opens with a temporary exhibition entitled

In February, the Royal Palace will inaugurate

different artistic and sensory experiences with original works.

Curated by Consuelo Luca de Tena and Blanca Pons Sorolla, it may be the most popular initiative in a program full of surprises.

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