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Madrid

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez September 12, 2017

So, I’m finally (finally!) wrapping up my series of photographs from our family trip to Spain this past spring. If you’re not a subscriber to this blog (and why wouldn’t you be? SUBSCRIBE HERE), here’s what you missed: We flew from Miami, landing in Madrid, where we spent our first two days and visited the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. We then rented a car and drove about 70 miles NW to the spectacular Walls of Ávila (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). We continued driving another 95 miles SW to our first stop in Spain’s Extremadura region (our main area of exploration on this trip), the city of Plasencia.

From Plasencia, we drove 13 miles south through Monfragüe National Park, the largest and best preserved Mediterranean forest worldwide and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and then drove another 28 miles south to the medieval city of Trujillo. From Trujillo, we drove about 50 miles east to the Royal Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (another UNESCO World Heritage Site) in Guadalupe, and then another 78 miles SE to visit the Roman Theatre in Mérida (yet another UNESCO World Heritage site) then driving about 45 miles north to the the capital city of the province of Extremadura, Cáceres (and yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site). On our final day in Extremadura, we took a short 20 minute drive further west to visit the Natural Monument of Los Barruecos before embarking on a three hour drive NE back to Madrid.

Which brings us to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Queen Sofia Arts Center), Spain’s national museum of 20th-century art which opened its doors in September of 1990 and is named for Queen Sofía, wife of King Juan Carlos I, who reigned from 1975 to 2014. The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include excellent collections of Spain’s two greatest 20th-century masters, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Certainly, the most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso’s painting “Guernica”.

The original building was home to the San Carlos Hospital, opened by King Felipe II in the sixteenth century. The present building is the work of architects José de Hermosilla and Francisco Sabatini, who was responsible for a large part of its construction. Since then, the building has undergone many transformations with its final renovations occurring in the late 1980s. In 1992, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia inaugurated the permanent collection, and thus named it the Reina Sofia after the Queen herself.

The museum, which we visited on our last day in Madrid before flying back home, has a collection of over 21,000 artworks from the 20th century as well as three permanent collections, one of them being “Guernica”, a stunning mural-sized oil painting on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, completed in June 1937. Regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history, “Guernica” was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italian warplanes at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. As I stood face to face with this powerful work of art, I found it very difficult to walk away from it. It alone is worth the price of admission to the museum (8€, about $9.50). Nuff said.

Now, you know I never visit a museum without a camera in hand, so here are a few images I snapped during our visit to this truly remarkable art museum…

We started out in the Guernica exhibit…

No photographs were allowed in the Guernica exhibit (and despite being tempted, I fought off the urge – barely) so here’s an installation view of Picasso’s Guernica by photographer Joaquín Cortés via artsy.net

A group of students gazing upon “Visage du Grand Masturbateur (Face of the Great Masturbator)” by prominent Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

Mrs. Perez appreciating “Natura morta” by Salvador Dalí

“La verbena” by Spanish painter Maruja Mallo (1902-1995). Mallo was born Ana María Gómez González in Viveiro, Galicia, and studied arts in Madrid. She was a driving force in the flowering of Spanish culture through the 1920s and 1930s

“Le Bal” (The Dance) by André Lhote (1885-1962), French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life…

“Hombre con pipa” by Joan Miró (1893-1983), a Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona. Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride…

“María la gitana” by Spanish sculptor Julio Antonio (1889-1919)

“La visita del obispo” by Spanish painter, engraver and author José Gutiérrez Solana (1886-1945)

My daughter Miranda puzzling over “La famille en état de métamorphose” by French artist André Masson (1896–1987)

A tour group gazes upon Picasso’s “Mujer en azul”

Young woman seems oblivious to “Os retirantes” by Cândido Portinari (1903–1962), one of the most important Brazilian painters as well as a prominent and influential practitioner of the neo-realism style in painting. This haunting painting was one of my faves…

Outside the museum is a lovely courtyard to sit and relax for a while, especially on a glorious day like the one we had during our visit…

In the courtyard, museum visitors gather around “Pájaro lunar” by Spanish painter/sculptor Joan Miró

“Carmen”, a monumental standing mobile, by Alexander Calder (1898-1976), an American sculptor known as the originator of the mobile, a type of moving sculpture made with delicately balanced or suspended shapes that move in response to touch or air currents…

Back inside, tour groups were a common site all around the museum…

“Portrait of Josette Gris” by Spanish painter and sculptor José Victoriano González-Pérez, better known as Juan Gris (1887–1927). Gris was closely connected to the innovative artistic genre Cubism, with his works being among the movement’s most distinctive…

“Nu” by Brazilian artist Ismael Nery (1900-1934)

“Bird Lady” by Dutch painter Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys (1920–2005), better known as Constant

“El hombre del cordero” by Pablo Picasso

“Pescadores” by Brazilian painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (1897–1976)

Interior of the Reina Sofía was spacious and modern – a beautiful museum…

“Cuerda de presos”, which received the gold medal in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Spain in 1901, by Spanish painter José María López Mezquita (1883-1954)

“El primer consejo” by Spanish artist and writer Antonio Saura, one of the major post-war painters to emerge in Spain in the fifties

“Três Orixás” by Brazilian painter, illustrator and engraver, Djanira (1914-1979). She was known for her naïve art paintings, depicting Brazilian common people, religious themes and landscapes…

Mrs. Perez and my daughter walking past “Equal-Parallel: Guernica-Bengasi”, a laminated steel sculpture by prestigious American artist Richard Serra

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía was well worth the trip and made for a great way to spend a few hours whilst in Madrid. Overall, our trip to Spain could only have been better if we had stayed another week. Besides our time in the cosmopolitan city of Madrid, we visited four UNESCO World Heritage Sites as well as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and a Natural Monument. We explored the mythical region of Extremadura and only wish we would have stayed an extra day (days!) in each city. Moreover, we had glorious weather every day of our trip (surely, the weather Gods will send rain every day of our next trip to Europe just to even things out a bit). As far as driving around Spain, it was easy like Sunday morning – very little traffic and plenty of eye-popping scenery along the way.

Madrid was great but I can’t recommend a trip to Spain’s Extremadura region enough. Visit turismoextremadura.com (and yes. the site is in English) to learn more and plan your trip to this historic region. We will hopefully return to Spain for another trip in the coming year, stay tuned…

Check out images from some of the other art museums I’ve visited in my travels abroad, starting with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museo Nacional de Arte and Museo Soumaya in Mexico City, the National Museum of Art of Romania, the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, el Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, and the Norton Museum of Art right here in South Florida. If there’s an art museum in town, I’m there.

September 12, 2017

Blog Photography Places & Spaces

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez June 16, 2017

written by Dan Perez

In case you haven’t read my previous post, last month, I took the family to Spain for a nine day vacation. Our first stop was the cosmopolitan city of Madrid. Now, if you know me, you know I got this thing for art museums and Madrid has what is known as the “Golden Triangle of Art”, which includes the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofia national galleries. The Prado, the main Spanish national art museum, doesn’t allow photographs which immediately disqualified it as a museum I planned to visit (I mean, if the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City allows photographs, who the heck does the Prado think they are?!).

Over the years, I’ve visited the aforementioned Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museo Nacional de Arte and Museo Soumaya in Mexico City, the National Museum of Art of Romania, the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, el Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, and the Norton Museum of Art right here in South Florida. If there’s an art museum in town, I’m there.

Next up is the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum which houses over 1,600 paintings and was once the second largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection. The museum houses the core of the collection of Heinrich Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva, a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector. The museum includes a mix of Medieval art, 17th century art by Flemish/Dutch masters, and works by Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.

After Heinrich Thyssen died in 1947, his son, Hans Henrik Ágost Gábor, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva (try saying that name three times fast) inherited his art collection. The collection was initially housed in the family estate in a twenty-room building in Lugano, a city in southern Switzerland. In 1988, the Baron filed a request for building a further extension but the plan was rejected by the Lugano City Council. The Baron’s wife, Carmen “Tita” Cervera (a former Miss Spain 1961), persuaded him to relocate the core of his collection to Spain where the local government had a building available next to the Prado.

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum officially opened in 1992, showing 715 works of art. A year later, the Spanish Government bought 775 works for $350 million. Cervera started her own collection and loaned 429 works to the museum in 1999 for 11 years. The loan has been renewed annually since 2012 (she also chose the salmon pink tone of the interior walls of the museum).

We visited this lovely museum on our second day in Madrid and, of course, I brought along my camera and took a few photographs of some of the many remarkable pieces of art there (thankfully, the Thyssen Museum doesn’t have the over-inflated ego of the Prado). Enjoy…

“Tough Customers” by John George Brown, a British citizen and an American painter born in Durham, England (1831-1913)

“The Penitent Saint Jerome” by Spanish Tenebrist painter Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652)

“The Toilet of Venus” by Flemish artist Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), who is considered the most influential artist of Flemish Baroque tradition…

“Battery ParK” by Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), an American painter, born in Paris, most notable for his depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s

“Los segadores” by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

“Quappi in Pink Jumper” by German painter Max Beckmann (1884-1950). The woman in the painting is his second wife, Mathilde “Quappi” Beckmann. With the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his dislike of Modern Art, the government confiscated more than 500 of Beckmann’s works from German museums in 1937, putting several on display in the notorious Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich. “Degenerate Art” being a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe Modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Beckmann left Germany in 1937 with his second wife, Quappi, for The Netherlands. He later settled (and died) in New York City.

“The Prints” by French painter Henri Charles Manguin (1874-1949)

“The Reader” by one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century, Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)

A couple (perhaps) discussing the meaning of “Portuguese Woman (The Large Portuguese)” (on left) or “Still-Life with a Parrot” (right) by French artist Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colors and geometric shapes…

“Portrait of Ferdinand VII” by Spanish romantic painter and printmaker Francisco de Goya, considered the most important Spanish artist of late 18th and early 19th centuries…

My daughter snapping a photo of “Portrait of Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland” by American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), considered the “leading portrait painter of his generation” for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury…

“Retrato de un niño” by Italian painter Piero della Francesca

“Four Piece Orchestra” by Lithuanian-born American artist Ben Shahn

“Arlequín con espejo” by Pablo Picasso

“Fishing Party on Long Island Sound Off New Rochelle” by James Goodwyn Clonney, an English-born American genre painter and lithographer

Portraits of the King and Queen of Spain by Spanish painter Ricardo Macarrón (1926-2004)

Hope you enjoyed the photographs. Look for my photographs from our visit to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in an upcoming post…

June 16, 2017

Blog Featured (Soledad)Photography Places & Spaces

The Cosmopolitan City of Madrid, Spain (In Pictures)

by Dan Perez June 12, 2017

written by Dan Perez

Last month, I took the family to Spain for a much needed vacation. For our nine-day stay, I wanted to explore different cities so I was thinking a few days in Madrid then off to possibly Barcelona or Seville – maybe Granada? I pored over travel blogs, Tripadvisor, LonelyPlanet, etc, trying to find a location for us until finally deciding to bypass Spain’s “usual suspects” of cities and explore the lesser-known area of Extremadura (see my previous post) but more on that later.

Our first stop on our direct flight from Miami was Madrid, the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain and the largest municipality in Spain as a whole. It is the third-largest city in the European Union (EU) after London and Berlin and has been occupied since prehistoric times. Now, there’s a whole lot I liked about Madrid. A whole lot. But here’s the thing – it reminded me too much of New York City. And I grew up in New York City. There were times I felt I was walking around the West Village and other times I felt I was walking the Upper East Side and when we visited Retiro Park I felt like I was in Central Park. I mean, there’s plenty of terrific sculptures and fountains and statues of kings on horses (and the art museums were great) but the feeling that I was in my beloved NYC was hard to shake. And when I go overseas, I want to feel like I’m in a different place, that’s all.

That said, we enjoyed our few days in Madrid. If I had to move there, I’d feel right at home…except for the whole tapas thing. When I go out to eat, I want an appetizer and then my meal and maybe a dessert. Having to order 10 different things off a menu to equal a meal took some getting used to but on our last day there, we had great tapas at La Musa in the lively Madrid neighbourhood of Malasaña. Just when I was finally getting the hang of the whole tapas thing. Alas.

Now, if you know me, you know I never travel without my camera (my Lumix GH4 and an assortment of lenses) so here are a few photographs I shot walking the colorful and lively streets of Madrid. Enjoy…

The Fuente de Cibeles (Cibeles Fountain) is the most important symbol of Madrid. It was built between 1777 and 1782 under the orders of King Carlos III. It was designed by Spanish architect Ventura Rodríguez in marble and represents the goddess Cibele (or Ceres, roman goddess of nature) astride a lion-drawn chariot.

Walking in to the Plaza Mayor, which was built during Philip III’s reign (1598–1621) and is a central plaza in the city of Madrid.

Inside the Plaza you’ll find the equestrian statue of Philip III by Flemish sculptor Jean Boulogne which dates to 1616 (you know you’re in Europe when you walk into a plaza and see a giant statue of some king on a horse). On the right is the Casa de la Panadería (Bakery House), which was completed in 1619 by Spanish architect Juan Gómez de Mora.

Exiting the Plaza through one of its nine porticoes…

Statue of Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz de Mudela (1526-1588) adorns Plaza de la Villa (which dates back to the 15th century) to the west of Plaza Mayor. Bazán was a Spanish admiral and according to Spanish sources, he was never defeated in a fifty-year long career. The sculpture was completed in 1888 by Spanish sculptor Mariano Benlliure.

Monument on Calle Mayor in Madrid for the victims of a terrorist bombing by anarchist Mateu Morral Roca in an attempt to assassinate King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his bride Victoria Eugenia on May 31, 1906, the day the two were married. The attempt, which killed almost thirty people and wounded a hundred, was carried out by throwing a bomb at the royal bridal carriage as it drove along the Calle Mayor in the city center, through crowds of people. Although his attempt failed, blood of the bystanders spattered the young Queen’s wedding gown.

Morral managed to escape from Madrid but on June 2, 1906, he was recognized by several people in a village near Torrejón de Ardoz where he stopped to eat.
When the authorities arrived, he appeared to be surrendering peacefully but managed to shoot and kill the guard who was taking him to Torrejón de Ardoz prison, and to commit suicide the moment after.

The first monument was designed by the architect Enrique Repullés y Vargas and executed by the sculptor Aniceto Marinas. It was completed in 1908 but this current monument was designed by Madrilenian sculptor Federico Coullaut-Valera and completed in 1963.

Bellfry of the Iglesia de San Ginés de Arlés (church of San Ginés), one of the oldest churches in Madrid. The church dates back to between the 12th and 13th centuries and its name comes from the fact that it was dedicated to the patron saint of notaries and secretaries(!), Saint Genesius of Arles (San Ginés de Arlés).

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum houses over 1,600 paintings and was once the second largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection. The museum, which officially opened in 1992, houses the core collection of Heinrich Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva, a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector.

The green lungs of the city lie in Buen Retiro Park (El Retiro) which features 125 hectares and is home to over 15,000 trees. The park takes its name from King Felipe IV’s 17th century royal palace that once stood on this site…

Monument to King Alfonso XII is situated on the east edge of an artificial lake near the center of Buen Retiro Park. More than twenty sculptors worked on the project, which was originally designed by architect José Grases Riera. The monument was inaugurated on June 6, 1922.

Images from Buen Retiro Park…

Sculpture of famous Spanish Baroque painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682) by Spanish sculptor Sabino Medina. The bronze statue, which was dedicated in 1871, is located at the Plaza de Murillo just aside of the Prado Museum and is an exact replica of the one in Seville made by Medina in 1864.

The magnificent Fuente de Neptuno (Fountain of Neptune) in the Plaza de Canovas del Castillo. The marble fountain, which was completed in 1784, was created by Spanish sculptor Juan Pascual de la Mena under the supervision of prolific Spanish architect and artist Ventura Rodríguez Tizón.

Puerta de Alcalá in the bustling Plaza de la Independencia, just outside the main entrance to the Parque del Buen Retiro. Around the year 1774, king Charles III commissioned Italian architect Francesco Sabatini to construct a monumental gate in the city wall through which an expanded road to the city of Alcalá was to pass. Puerta de Alcalá was inaugurated in 1778.

Jamón ibérico (Iberian ham) is a type of cured ham produced in Spain and Portugal and made from black Iberian pigs. The curing process then takes at least twelve months, although some producers cure their jamones ibéricos for up to 48 months. Oh, and it’s yummy.

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Queen Sofía Museum) is Spain’s national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía, the wife of King Juan Carlos I, who reigned from 1975 to 2014. The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art and its most famous masterpiece is Picasso’s painting Guernica. No photographs were allowed in the Guernica exhibit but after coming face-to-face with the mural-sized oil painting, it was very difficult to walk away. In the photograph above, a tour group discusses Picasso’s “Mujer en azul”.

As for the Prado Museum, the main Spanish national art museum, they didn’t allow photographs (I mean, how would anyone know we were even there, right?) so we skipped it.

Street view of Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena, the principle church of the Diocese of Madrid. A relatively “new” building, construction of Almudena only began in 1879 and was not completed until 1993, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II.

One of the highlights of our trip was getting in to see the nightly flamenco show at the historic Corral de la Morería. Listed in the New York Times bestseller “1000 Places to See Before You Die”, the flamenco show was…how can I put it best? Caliente.

Estación de Madrid Atocha is the largest railway station in Madrid. The railway station was inaugurated on February 9, 1851 and rebuilt and reopened in 1892 after being destroyed by fire. Spanish engineer and architect Alberto de Palacio Elissagne was responsible for the old building’s new design, which incorporated a style that was predominantly of wrought iron. Gustave Eiffel, better known for the tower bearing his name in Paris, also collaborated on the project.

We ended up having to suddenly hump our luggage and walk/run to the station for a bus to the airport when we woke up that morning and realized there was a taxi driver protest going on(!). Missed our flight back to Miami which ended up costing me 600 euros to get on the next flight plus a four hour+ wait at the airport. Not the way we intended for our trip to end but it was one small negative on a family trip that went beyond our expectations (starting with the weather, which was fantastic up to our last day).

Epilogue: Uber worked well in Madrid. Took sometimes 10 minutes for a car but we used it about 5 times there with very good results. Also, if you happen to be staying in the Lavapiés neighborhood (which I highly recommend as it is walking distance to several of Madrid’s most notable attractions as well as less than a 10 minute walk to the Atocha station), do stop in for breakfast or lunch at Plenti. We had breakfast there, “huevos a la cazuela” (a delicious baked egg dish we were skeptical at first to try) and the batido de plátano, manzana, naranja y galleta was so good, I had to order a second one (worth every penny of its $4 price). Coffee was also delicious (as it was just about everywhere else we went in Spain) and owners Sophie and Gonzalo (who both speak English) were just about the friendliest folks we encountered in Spain.

Don’t miss upcoming photographs from our visit to Extremadura, SUBSCRIBE HERE (you won’t be sorry!)

June 12, 2017