Art Expertization, Appraisal and Valuation. Conservation Issues in the Spanish Contemporary Art Market

The need to apply conservation-restoration criteria in museums, heritage and public collections has been widely studied in previous publications. However, the functions of the conservator-restorer in the face of the problems of the Spanish Contemporary Art Market have hardly been addressed in scientific literature. This research is based on two objectives: firstly, to investigate how the specific technical and artistic knowledge of the conservator-restorer covers a need in the ecosystem of the Contemporary Art Market by means of expert reports, appraisal and valuation. Secondly, to analyze how these specific skills and knowledge are transferred through Higher Education programs. Based on a comparative study, the specific problems of the Spanish Art Market shall be mapped, and protocols proposed that are respectful of conservation-restoration criteria and transferable through university programs to the future contemporary art stakeholders.

Conversación con el profesor Alfonso Rodríguez Gutiérrez de Ceballos, catedrático de Historia del Arte

El profesor Rodríguez Gutiérrez de Ceballos es una figura clave en el ámbito de la Historia del Arte Barroco. De sólida formación e impecable trayectoria docente e investigadora, comenzó a publicar en los años sesenta. Las respuestas a las preguntas formuladas en esta entrevista permiten aproximarse a una etapa histórica de importantes cambios en la disciplina, con figuras eminentes que sentaron nuevas bases para el estudio de la Historia del Arte Español. El profesor Rodríguez Gutiérrez de Ceballos habla de su familia, de su infancia en Salamanca, de sus estudios universitarios, de sus maestros, de sus compañeros y de su vínculo con conocidos hispanistas. Comenta sus aportaciones más destacadas y su reciente nombramiento como doctor honoris causa por la Universidad de Murcia. Concluye con un mensaje de ánimo para los que comienzan. Professor Rodríguez Gutiérrez de Ceballos is a key figure in the field of Baroque Art History. With a solid background and an impeccable teaching and research career, he began publishing in the 1960s. His answers to the questions raised in this interview provide an insight into a historic moment of important changes in the discipline and eminent figures who laid new foundations for the study of the History of Spanish Art. Professor Rodríguez Gutiérrez de Ceballos talks about his family, his childhood in Salamanca, his university studies, his teachers and colleagues and their links to renowned Hispanists. He comments on his best known contributions and his recent appointment as doctor honoris causa by the University of Murcia. It concludes with a message of encouragement for those starting in the profession.

Luisa Roldán

Luisa Roldán (b. 1652–d. 1706) lived and worked in three Spanish cities, was sculptor to the royal chambers of Kings Carlos II and Felipe V of Spain, but left no followers and died in relative poverty. Her work relates to two different artistic traditions: intimate groups in terracotta representing the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with saints, which met the desires of the Spanish nobility whose social status was reinforced by displaying this type of possession in their homes, and powerful, over-life-sized wooden sculptures of Christ and the saints that proclaimed a robust religious faith in niches and chapels in Andalucían churches and when carried through Seville’s streets during Holy Week. Roldán’s life and her work have begun to receive significant scholarly attention in the past half-century, placing her firmly in the canon of Spanish art history. Most of the scholarship about Roldán is written in Spanish, with increasing numbers of publications appearing in English. As a female sculptor in Golden Age Spain Roldán‘s identity invites examination through the lenses of her gender, the two very different artistic media that she used, the sociopolitical contexts of the cities in which she worked, and the reception of her work. Her social position is a complex one to understand. She was not a member of a noble family, had limited participation in her family workshop, and enjoyed only sporadic access to external patronage. A significant factor in the establishment of her public identity is the manner in which Roldán’s life and work has been approached by writers. In the first two centuries after her death fewer than ten references to her life or her work were published. The pace of scholarship increased in the 20th century after Proske’s publication in 1964 of three seminal articles attracted the interest of scholars beyond Spain. Journal articles began to appear, and in 2007 an exhibition was held dedicated to her work and her role as a sculptor at the courts of two Spanish kings. Since then details have been brought to light in journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, and exhibition catalogue entries, contributing to the development of a maturing and nuanced appreciation of Roldán’s life and work. Luisa Roldán was a resourceful and productive woman whose personal drive and creativity were stronger than any potentially restrictive societal boundaries. Her enduring and indeed growing public recognition owes much to the ability she had to adapt to changing circumstances by marrying without her father’s consent, moving cities, seeking new patrons, and changing the medium in which she worked. The bibliography that follows presents our current understanding, through the lenses of documentary evidence and scholarly analysis, which acknowledges her place in the artistic, social, and economic environments in which she lived.

Exhibitions and Exchange

Considers how the flow of aesthetic objects, capital and knowledge between Britain and Spain was conditioned by the unequal balance of power between Britain and Spain. Traces the history of exhibiting Spanish art and the factors shaping British taste in Spanish artists, including the professionalization of knowledge about Spain and Spanish arts. Explores the dark side of cultural flows and the effects of Spanish attempts to take back control, including the controversial trade in Spanish artworks, and the exploitative fraud known as the ‘Spanish swindle’.

Antes del Arte in Spain (1968–1969): Merging Art, Science and Politics in the Heat of the Cold War

This article concerns Antes del Arte, a vanguard Spanish art group that existed from 1968 to 1969. Through specific examples, the author explains the group's history and theoretical basis as well as its artistic production. Discussing the references taken from contemporary aesthetic scientific theories, the author analyzes the substantial theoretical framework that the art critic Vicente Aguilera Cerni introduced into the group's manifestos. Finally, she addresses the specific role that the interactions between the artistic and the scientific fields had in the context of Spain's Franco regime.

“IN PROIEZIONE”: SPAZIO E IMMAGINE IN LAS MENINAS DI DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ

This study focuses on the spatial analysis of Las Meninas, the worldwide well-known pictorial art masterpiece by Diego Velázquez. Aesthetics, form, and symbolism, are here interlinked with a geometric pattern dependent on the exact location of the designated viewpoint, which severely obeys to the projective rules of linear perspective, where, as a gem in the gem, even the image of a mirror appears, to masterly highlight the final moral of the story, surprisingly explicated by the appeal to reflection. Sophisticated geometry feature and sublime graphic execution work together in this painting to establish the role of pictorial art as a creative besides imitative activity, representing painting itself in the very act of setting a pictorial reality, all this at the height of the so-called Golden Age of the Spanish art.

La Colección de arte español de William Stirling Maxwell en Pollok House, Glasgow

El siglo XIX supondrá un punto de inflexión en el mercado artístico europeo. La introducción de España en dicho mercado dará lugar a una nueva tendencia en el coleccionismo que se interesará especialmente por el arte del Siglo de Oro español. Este artículo busca analizar una de las colecciones más relevantes en todo Reino Unido por convertirse en paradigma del nuevo contexto que acontecía en dicho siglo, la del escocés Stirling Maxwell, y en particular la llamada colección Pollok que ha llegado a nuestros días, ubicada en Glasgow. Así como los motivos que le llevaron a interesarse por el coleccionismo de arte español y las consecuencias que tuvo para la nueva forma de mirar la cultura y el arte españoles en la sociedad anglosajona. The Nineteenth century was a decising point in the European artistic market. The introduction of Spain into that market would build a new collectionism interested by Spanish Golden Age art. This article analyses one of the most important collections throughout the United Kingdom because it became the paradigm of new century context, the collection of the Scottish Stirling Maxwell, and in particular, the Pollok collection that has survived, placed in Glasgow. And the reasons of the interest of the Scottish collector about Spanish art and the consequences that it had for the new vision of the anglosaxon society about the Spanish culture and art.

Breve storia di una liberazione

The essay offers a specific recollection of the participation of Spain at the Venice Biennale since 1976 to 1999. The starting date has a particular relevance both for historical and artistic reasons. 1976 coincides in fact with a democratic beginning for the Country, which has just witnessed Franco’s death. This meant the end of a long period of isolation and the recovery from years of repression and dictatorship. Through that time, artistically, Spain was not left behind, thanks to the strength of many artists who kept contact with other countries, always up to date on what was new. However, they had been forced to choose between being artist of the regime or stay hidden in an interior exile. With the Biennale edition of 1976, the special project, promoted by the institution and two of the most renowned art critics at the time, Valeriano Bozal and Tomàs Llorens, called España, Vanguardia artistica y realidad social. 1936-1976, tried to draw a critical and historical view on the Spanish artistic languages consumed and silenced by censorship. Through the 80s and the 90s Spain has experienced a renewed awareness of its internationally artistic role and that has reflected on the choices made for Venice Biennale. Although seeing the evolution of Spanish art in the last decades through the Biennale is limited and incomplete, it has an undeniable interest and relevance worth being investigated.