How San Antonio Snagged Masterpieces
In 2016, the director of the San Antonio Museum of Art, Katie Luber, dared to ask the Museo del Prado in Madrid to lend Velázquez’s Las Meninas (1656) to her institution for an exhibition. “We knew it was impossible, but we did want them to know how serious we were,†she says. The gamble paid off. Madrid’s leading museums, including the Prado, the Museo Reina SofÃa and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, are sending 34 works—including 25 that have never before travelled to the United States—to the Texas museum’s 2018 summer exhibition. Spain: 500 Years of Spanish Painting from the Museums of Madrid (22 June-16 September) marks the tricentennial of San Antonio, founded by Spanish Franciscan missionaries in 1718. Las Meninas will not appear, but there will be works by masters such as Goya, El Greco and Murillo.
