Rosario de Velasco

The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum is hosting an exhibition from 18 June to 15 September in its temporary exhibition hall, devoted to the Spanish figurative painter, Rosario de Velasco, which brings together the most important paintings from her artistic career.

In collaboration with the Valencia Museum of Fine Arts, the exhibition, curated by Miguel Lusarreta and Toya Viudes de Velasco, the artist’s great-niece, brings together thirty paintings from the 1920s to the 1940s. The exhibition also includes a section devoted to her work as a graphic illustrator.

The paintings on display will include some well known works from museum collections, such as the famous oil painting of Adam and Eve, which can be found at the Reina Sofia National Art Centre Museum and with which Rosario de Velasco won second-prize for painting at the National Fine Arts Exhibition in 1932.  The Massacre of the Innocents (1936) from the Valencia Fine Arts Museum will also be on display.

Paintings that have remained with Velasco’s family and in private collection for many years will be on display for the first time. The location of some of these paintings was unknown until recently and have only been found and identified in the past few years. Through this selection of paintings, drawings and illustrations, the exhibition seeks to rediscover and reassess the work of one of the great Spanish female artists of the first half of the 20th century.

Image Credit:

• Rosario de Velasco. Adam and Eve, 1932, Oil on Canvas. Reina Sofia National Art Centre Museum, Madrid
• Rosario de Velasco. Washerwomen, 1934. Oil on Canvas. 209 x 197 cm. Private collection © Rosario de Velasco, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024. Photo: © Jonás Bel
• Rosario de Velasco. Maragatos, 1934. Oil on Canvas. 210 x 150 cm. Costume Museum, Madrid. © Rosario de Velasco, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024. Photo: © Costume Museum. Ethnological Heritage Research Centre, Madrid
• Rosario de Velasco. Things, 1933. Oil on Canvas. 45.5 x 65.5 cm. Private collection © Rosario de Velasco, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024
• Rosario de Velasco. The Slaughter of the Innocents, ca 1936. Oil on Canvas. 164 x 167.5 cm. Valencia Museum of Fine Arts. © Rosario de Velasco, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024. © Photo: Valencia Museum of Fine Arts