Goya Archive 2008-2010
December 15, 2010
Taft Museum showing full set of Los Caprichos through January 2011
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July 24, 2010
"Goya Hill" saved from development
Francisco de Goya: Pilgrimage to San Isidro, painted 1820 -1823 View enlargement
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July 20, 2010
Chemicals, X-Rays, and Surprises
National Gallery: Close Examinations
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April 6, 2010
Article on the model in Goya's "la maja vestida"
Goya: la maja vestida
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March 28, 2010
Artist Gary Arseneau Decries 'forged' Goya etchings
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Prado has 14 pieces 'super digitized' - Works of Goya, Rembrandt and Velasquez
Google creating a 'gigapixel' gallery of famous art
Interesting article about the technology now being used to photograph detail of paintings from the Prado collection at a resolution not ever used before, far outdistancing the previous limits of digital and analog cameras. Read here at the Vromo blog in original spanish or in translation to english.
Also, read the article at the UK Telegraph (english) discussing the Google system and what they're doing.
Goya in Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam
33 images from The Disasters of War presented
A certain amount of irony is probably unintentional in this exhibit of 33 images from Los Desastres appearing in Ho Chi Mihn city as part of the celebrations for the 1,000 anniversary of the city Hanoi and the 35th anniversary of the liberation of the South. The exhibit totals 46 pieces altogether from the Hans Guggenheim collection. The event is sponsored by the Ho Chi Mihn City Fine Arts Association and the Viet Nam Fine Arts Association. Complete article online at the Vietnam News Agency.
March 18, 2010
Goya Digital Catalog nearing completion
The digital catalogue raisonné of Goya works we reported on from February 26 is nearing completion. The cover has been released. This comprehensive 'alternative' catalog effort is led by Prof. Amparo Sacristan of Mataro University in Spain:
March 17, 2010
Professor Antonio Pereles has died
I received news from the goyadiscovery site that after a long illness, Professor Pereles has passed away. Below is a spanish language video of an interview with the professor about Goya. I am searching for an obituary of Mr. Pereles that I can link to and possibly provide on this web site.
March 8, 2010
Goya Los Caprichos exhibit in the Lithuania Capitol
The English language newspaper The Baltic Times carries a review of the current Goya Los Caprichos exhibit in the Lithuania Capitol of Vilnius.The 78 etching presentation (A complete set of Los Caprichos contains 80) is being shown at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, which is situated on Didzioji Street 4 in Vilnius’ Old Town.The etching set is from an 1806 edition, and an interesting note is made about their condition and why there are only 78 pieces:
"These etchings were shown for the first time in the fall of 2009, in Riga. In 1930, the etchings were brought to the Riga City Art Museum by some unknown art collector. The documentation of art purchases was not so strict in those times and the name of the seller remained unknown. The original Los Caprichos has 80 etchings. The museum in Riga purchased 78.
According to Daiga Upeniece, head of the foreign art department of the Latvian National Museum of Art, the two etchings, which were not bought, are extremely scary - they show torture of children, and could be the reason why they were not bought by the museum.
The prints are sensitive to light. This is why, after the exhibition in Vilnius, which will be closed on May 18, the etchings will ‘rest’ in storage at the Latvian National Museum of Art for the next two years."
March 4, 2010
Update on our Black Paintings page
A new diagram showing the position of the 'Black Paintings' on the walls of the Quinta de Goya. A large image of the diagram is online on the page about Xavier de Salas' material on the Black Paintings.
February 26, 2010
Digital catalogue raisonné of Goya works underway
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February 24, 2010
Alberta Canada exhibit of "Double Bill" Goya's Disasters of War and Los Caprichos
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February 2, 2010
A defense of el Coloso (The Giant) authorship by Sarah Symmons
Dr Sarah Symmons addressed the issue of animal anatomy in el Coloso in a brief article at the Spanish language news site ABC.ES. The 'clumsy' anatomy of bulls and donkeys was used as part of the basis for the Prado Museum's demotion of Colosus from the list of offically recognized Goya artworks.
"When the horses were important, like in the Bullfighting, Goya painted them exquisitely . But when the horses performed a marginal function in a composition, for example in the Picture of Fernando VII, they assumed a clumsy, inanimate quality."
Read the entire article (in Spanish) at abc.es
Goya’s Prints: The Dawn of Modern Art
January 26, 2010
Review of Goya Etching Show in Dallas
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January 24, 2010
Goya Ink Wash Drawings sell for $1,048,000 USD
Sotheby Old Masters auction in New York on January 24, 2010
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September 15, 2009
"Colossos" Represents the imperial power of Napoleon
From a speach by the UK Foreign Office Minister, Chris Bryant, addressing the Latin American Forum at casa de America in Madrid on September 14, 2009. The event was the Latin American Forum.
From the UK Foreign Commonwealth Office government web site:
"I am not sure whether you know Goya's painting, The Colossus. It depicts a giant who is trampling over a landscape of destroyed villages. For Goya, the colossus then was Napoleon's imperialism, which he also presented in his paintings Second of May and Third of May. And their message still holds true today. The relationship between Latin America and Europe cannot be a neo-colonial or imperialistic relationship. It must be a relationship of equals."
More information about Goya's El Coloso
June 1, 2009
Los Caprichos Plates 31 and 59 at Auction – June 11
Goya etching prints from Los Caprichos (plates 31 and 59) are going on auction at the Galerie Kornfeld in Bern, Switzerland. They are estimating the sale at $6,774 (USD) for each individual print. The auction also includes six other etchings from La Touromaquia ("bullfighting" series) with estimate prices at approximately $5,000 USD (Note: the images int the Kornfeld catalog seem to had at least one error, for the print Lluvie de Toro. The representative image seems to be wrong.)
Plate 31 English title: "She prays for her" – apparent reference to 'prey/pray' and dealing with the relationship between a prostitute and her Duenna. Spanish title: Ruega por ella.
Plate 57 English title: "And still they don't go away." Spanish title: Y aun no se van!
Auction information:
Auction 247: Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Part II
Oil Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings, Sculptures, Prints, Ilustrated Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries as well as Contemporary Art - more than 700 numbers
Auction sale on Thursday, 11th of June, 9.30 a.m. (No. 176-513) and 2.15 p.m. (No. 514-880):Francisco de Goya
Title: Ruega por ella, pl. 31 (from Los Caprichos)
Medium etching, aquatint, drypoint and copper engraving
Size 7.9 x 5.8 in. / 20.1 x 14.8 cm.
Year 1798 - 1799
Cat. Rais. Harris, 66/III/1
Sale Of Galerie Kornfeld: Thursday, June 11, 2009 [Lot 312]
Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Teil II
Estimate 7,500 CHF (6,774 US$)
Auction Info. Galerie Kornfeld
Laupenstrasse 41
Bern , 3008 Switzerland
Tel: +41 (0)31 381 46 73
Fax: +41 (0)31 382 18 91
Click here to email auction house
Bid Dept. Tel: +41 (0)31 381 4673
Click here to email the bid dept..
Regarding the La Touromaquia prints: an 1877 reproduction (from L'Art) sold at auction with Heritage for $717.00 in March 2009.
More information about the Goya Caprichos Prints
JULY 10, 2008
3 Goya Drawings auction at twice the pre-sale estimate
This item about the Christies Auction has moved to this page here.
JULY 2, 2008
New York Times on Goya 'War' Exhibit; also El Coloso
JUNE 27, 2008
"Colossus" by an assistant, claims Prado
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JUNE 12, 2008
Two Concurrent Goya Exhibits running at Prado
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Goya Robbers Head to Jail
Ben Sisario at the New York Times writes about the legal consequences of hijacking Goya's "Cart" Painting:
"Two men who stole a valuable Goya painting are going to federal prison, The Associated Press reported. The men, Steven Lee Olson and Roman Szurko, stole “Children With a Cart,” from a transport truck in November 2006 as its drivers spent the night at a motel in Bartonsville, Pa. The work was on its way to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York from the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. The painting, from 1778, was insured for $1 million."
JUNE 6, 2008
3 "Lost" Goya drawings to be sold at Christie's July 8
JUNE 5, 2008
South Florida Authentication Efforts at Truthinart.org
A new organization coming from Miami, with an emphasis on Goya artworks, is organizing. Their web site is online but has little information. However, I have been told that they are in the early stages of putting together an exhibit of rare Goya art owned by private collectors.
JUNE 5, 2008
New York Times Review "Disasters of War"
A local SoHo exhibit of a 4th edition set of 'Disasters' has been reviewed at the New York Times by Karen Rosenberg:
"Francisco de Goya’s print series “The Disasters of War,” an extended portrait of the cruelty and aggression that accompanied Spain’s War of Independence in the early 1800s, has been used and abused by artists wishing to plumb the depths of human nature. (In a notorious example, the brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman purchased a rare edition and drew clowns and puppies over Goya’s images of victims.)
A complete fourth edition, published in 1906 by the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, is now on view in SoHo. It will deliver a shock to anyone who thinks that the “Disasters” have been overexposed, or that black-and-white etchings can’t convey terror and intimidation with as much force as more modern mediums."
The exhibit runs through August 2008.
JUNE 4, 2008
University of Iowa Exhibit includes "Disasters"
The Helena P. and Ignacio V. Ponseti collection is on view in Iowa City at the University Pentacrest Art Museum. The show includes 6 selections from the 80-print Disasters of War series.
University of Iowa Press Release
AMAZON
Goya The Terrible Sublime - Graphic Novel - (Spanish Edition) - Amazon
"From this headlong seizure of life we should not expect a calm and refined art, nor a reflective one. Yet Goya was more than a Nietzschean egoist riding roughshod over the world to assert his supermanhood. He was receptive to all shades of feeling, and it was his extreme sensitivity as well as his muscular temerity that actuated his assaults on the outrageous society of Spain." From Thomas Craven's essay on Goya from MEN OF ART (1931).
"...Loneliness has its limits, for Goya was not a prophet but a painter. If he had not been a painter his attitude to life would have found expression only in preaching or suicide." From Andre Malroux's essay in SATURN: AN ESSAY ON GOYA (1957).
"Goya is always a great artist, often a frightening one...light and shade play upon atrocious horrors." From Charles Baudelaire's essay on Goya from CURIOSITES ESTRANGERS (1842).
"[An] extraordinary mingling of hatred and compassion, despair and sardonic humour, realism and fantasy." From the foreword by Aldous Huxley to THE COMPLETE ETCHINGS OF GOYA (1962).
"His analysis in paint, chalk and ink of mass disaster and human frailty pointed to someone obsessed with the chaos of existence..." From the book on Goya by Sarah Symmons (1998).
"I cannot forgive you for admiring Goya...I find nothing in the least pleasing about his paintings or his etchings..." From a letter to (spanish) Duchess Colonna from the French writer Prosper Merimee (1869).
GOYA : Los Caprichos - Dover Edition - Amazon
