The Fine Arts Museum of Alicante exhibits a work by Renoir for the first time

This is the first time that the artist enters the Mubag, with a painting that is part of the exhibition “Women between Renoir and Sorolla”, which brings together 64 works from the Fran Daurel Foundation for Contemporary Art and 7 of Diocesan Museum of Barcelona.

In addition to Renoir’s painting, works by Ramón Casas and the picture “Nude on the Yellow Divan” by Sorolla, besides “Gitana”, from Alcoyano Lorenzo Casanova.

The exhibition, which is part of the special program for the twentieth anniversary of the Mubag inauguration on December 14, 2001, addresses the female universe of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one of the most suggestive stages in history of art due to the social and economic changes that imply the visibility of women in society as participants and protagonists, something that the artists of the time reflected “in a natural way”. Helena Alonso, curator of this exhibition.

“Women between Renoir and Sorolla”, which will be in Alicante until March 17, has already been seen in several cities, the last Lisbon, although in each space it adapts to the environment. In this way, Alicante has had work from the Diocesan Museum of Madrid. “The theme,” said the director of Mubag, Jorge Soler– It is linked to the permanent collection that is currently being remodeled and in which special attention is devoted to the issue of women represented in the 19th century “.

Soler stressed that for the Mubag “it is enriching to have the list of artists that make up this exhibition, especially the figure of Ramón Casas, who is exhibited for the first time in the museum and who reflects like no other artist the splendor and the decadence of the woman at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, embodied by her muse Julia “.

Also, the nude by Joaquín Sorolla “which has nothing to do with the soft modeling of classical sculpture that is taken as a reference in the mythological nudes of nineteenth-century painting of the first half of the century.” In addition to works by Isidre Nonell, Hermen Anglada-Camarasa, Pablo Gargallo, Manolo Hugué, that “pose different formal and conceptual discourses around women.”

The deputy for Culture, Julia Parra, has revealed the new direction of the Mubag. “After two decades of travel, we want to mark a turning point towards a process of greater national and international projection and, with the exhibition that we present today, that evolution begins “.

Areas of the exhibition

Bringing “that rich vision” of the female world that precedes the 20th century changes in women, “in a society full of restrictions” is the objective of this exhibition, according to Helena Alonso.

For this, the sample is divided into five areas. The first focuses on the representation of the nude, where Sorolla’s “Nude on the Yellow Divan” stands out. It is followed by women in the intelligentsia, in which it is shown “La lectura”, by Teixidor, or “The preferred reading”, by Ribera.

The following area gives the vision of women in outer space, “with the arrival of women to the theater as spectators, with works created specifically for them, and also as an active part”, Alonso stressed. This includes works such as “En el palco”, by Josep Llovera or “Invierno”, by Ramón Casas. Also the woman in the field and the sport, with the central work of “The cyclist”, of Casas.

Women at work occupies another section, with Hugué’s sculpture “La Llovera”, among others, along with the domestic sphere, represented by “Woman looking abroad”, by Casas, or “Mes de María”, by Brull.

Finally, the portrait and the dreamed Arcadia, where Renoir’s painting is exhibited, which places women “as a being who has known how to remain linked to nature during and after World War I, as a carrier of values”. You can also see in this part a sculpture by Gargallo.