The museum carrying the Valencian painter’s husband exhibits eight sculptures, including a bust of the daughter of the master of realism
The Sorolla Museum explores the brotherly friendship between the Valencian painter and Mariano Benlliure with an exhibition that brings together a series of pieces the sculptor donated to the eminent artist, including a never-before-exhibited carving by Velázquez.
Joaquín Sorolla and Mariano Benlliure were not only two of the greatest artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The two masters of realism were first and foremost two close friends. Two Valencians living in Madrid who lived to create a unique art, which was successful both in Spain and abroad. Both won the gold medal at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 and were highly acclaimed in their country.
Both were imbued with a traveling spirit that prompted them to exhibit in the US, France, Chile, Argentina or Cuba, while sharing common projects such as the creation of a permanent palace of fine arts and industry in Valencia, an ambitious initiative that did not thrive, or the organization of exhibitions of the Valencian Artistic Youth. Their relationship began when they were both teenagers in Valencia and lasted throughout their lives, until Sorolla’s untimely death at age 60.
The fruit of such a lasting friendship took shape in a series of artistic exchanges. Sorolla portrayed Mariano Benlliure and his family, giving him paintings dedicated to him: “to my friend”, “to my brother”. The sculptor, realizing how much the painter loved sculpture, presented him with a small collection of bronzes and a plaster cast, as well as a decorative ceramic vase, pieces that come together today, on the 75th anniversary of the sculptor’s death, for the first time in a room in the Sorolla Museum.
Organized by the Sorolla Museum and the Sorolla Museum Foundation, the exhibition ‘A friendship, two artists: Sorolla and Benlliure’, which opens tomorrow and remains open until October 2, aims to pay tribute not only to the sculptor Mariano Benlliure Gil, but also to the friendship cultivated by the two artists. A relationship that extended to their wives and families, leading Mariano Benlliure to initiate Elena Sorolla García, the painter’s youngest daughter, into sculpture, a discipline in which she pioneered in her time.
This friendship continues today between the descendants of both artists who maintain these brotherly ties. Curated by Ana Muñoz Martín and Covadonga Pitarch Angulo, the exhibition brings together eight sculptures, including Sorolla’s portraits: a profile bronze plate that the sculptor made in honor of the painter’s successes in 1909, when the individual exhibition he took to New York and broke every critical, sales and public records imaginable; or the limestone bust that has been welcoming visitors to the museum’s garden since 1932, showing Sorolla doing what he loves best: painting in the sunlight.
The plaster of a ‘Study for the Monument to Velázquez’ stands out in the exhibition, a work on display to the public for the first time and which has the importance of being one of the best preserved plaster casts by the author. Also noteworthy are the portraits of the photographer Antonio García Peris, father-in-law of Joaquín Sorolla, a bronze piece that was a gift from the painter to his wife, and that of María Sorolla García, the artist’s eldest daughter, whom Benlliure gave to the descendant of the painter gave when she married.
In addition to these sculptural pieces, the exhibition includes a decorative ceramic vase, three drawings — which are actually three caricatures, two by Sorolla and one by Benlliure — and a series of photographs and letters showing the museum’s friendship between the two artists.
The exhibition is set up in the first room of the Sorolla Museum, a studio that Sorolla used, among other things, to organize the posthumous exhibition of Aureliano Beruete, a close family friend and landscape painter. again featuring one of the most important figures in the Spanish art scene and one of the fundamental people in the life of the Valencian painter. The exhibition is accompanied by a guidebook with texts by the curators and by Lucrecia Enseñat Benlliure and Blanca Pons-Sorolla, descendants of Mariano Benlliure and Joaquín Sorolla respectively, and both close friends.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
