PAST EXHIBITION

The Meadows Museum and The National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) present the first major U.S. exhibition dedicated to Spanish sculptor Alonso Berruguete (c. 1488–1561). Over the course of his career, which included a period in Italy under the influence of Michelangelo among others, Berruguete emerged as sixteenth-century Spain’s most innovative artist. His work was grounded in the traditions of his native Spain and refined by exposure to the height of the Italian Renaissance; through his natural talent for anatomical precision, dynamic movement, and psychological insight, he revolutionized Spanish art.

While he is known today primarily as a sculptor, during his lifetime Berruguete was widely respected for his work across a variety of media. This exhibition demonstrates the breadth of Berruguete’s practice, displaying six drawings (nearly half of all drawings confidently attributed to him), three paintings (including rare paintings from his Italian period), and twenty-four sculptures, including almost two dozen of the best examples from the retablo for the church of San Benito in Valladolid, which is widely considered the artist’s magnum opus. A video will also be presented, which brings to life his works in Spain that cannot travel, such as those in the Toledo cathedral. An introductory gallery featuring works by his father—an accomplished painter in his own right—and other Spanish artists of the era will provide a view of the artistic landscape in which Berruguete operated. In the Dallas venue, curated by the Meadows Museum’s Mellon Curatorial Fellow, Wendy Sepponen, this will also include selected works from the Meadows’s permanent collection that will put the artist into dialogue with his Spanish contemporaries.

A fully illustrated catalog accompanying the exhibition, sponsored by the Center for Spain in America/ Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, Madrid, will be the first general book on Berruguete published in English and will feature a preface by preeminent Spanish art historian Jonathan Brown, the Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts, New York University. Contributors to the publication include C.D. Dickerson III, curator and head of the department of sculpture and decorative arts, National Gallery of Art; Mark McDonald, curator of prints and drawings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Manuel Arias Martínez, head of collections and deputy director, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid; Daphne Barbour, senior object conservator, National Gallery of Art; Richard Kagan, Academy Professor and Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor Emeritus of History, Johns Hopkins University; Wendy Sepponen, Mellon Curatorial Fellow 2018–2020, Meadows Museum; and Julia Vazquez, doctoral candidate in the department of art history and archaeology at Columbia University.

This exhibition is organized by the Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid, and funded by a generous gift from The Meadows Foundation. Promotional support provided by VisitDallas and The Dallas Morning News.