The Year of Sorolla at ARTIKA: 100 years since the death of the painter of light

This 10 August marks the 100th anniversary of the painter’s death. In the middle of celebrating the Year of Sorolla, we want to commemorate the artist who discovered the infinite nuances of air, light and sea. Joaquín Sorolla taught us to see the Mediterranean through art, which is why his works continue to fascinate us.

Sorolla around the world

Joaquín Sorolla’s art transcends the limits of time and space. His masterpieces have been appreciated for more than a century and never cease to amaze anyone who sees one of his paintings for the first time. Exhibitions and tributes are being offered on both sides of the Atlantic to mark the Year of Sorolla.

The Ministry of Culture has declared this 100th anniversary a “Special Event of Public Interest”, with venues in Madrid and Valencia celebrating this anniversary along with other cities in Spain. The “Sorolla Through Light” exhibition can be seen at Madrid’s Palacio Real through 24 September. It includes several paintings from private collections that have rarely been shown to the public, along with digital recreations made using virtual reality.

Walk along the sea (Paseo a orillas del mar, 1909). Sorolla Museum, Madrid.

“In Sorolla’s Sea, with Manuel Vicent” will be on display at the Sorolla Museum in Madrid until 1 September. The exhibition creates a dialogue between painting and literature: the writer Manuel Vicent offers a poetic and visual journey through 50 of the artist’s works, some of them never exhibited before.

Likewise, Valencia’s Fine Arts Museum will open the “Masaveu Collection. Sorolla” to the public through 1 October. This is a group of paintings that represent the most extensive private collection of Sorolla art in Spain and the third in the world.

Among the exhibitions showcased in the United States, the initiative curated by the Hispanic Society of America, which exhibits the Sorolla paintings that the institution safeguards in New York, is particularly significant, with pieces including Children on the Beach, After the Bath and Portrait of Louis Comfort Tiffany. 

Coming out of the bathroom (Saliendo del baño, 1915). Sorolla Museum, Madrid.

The city of Dallas will join in on the Year of Sorolla celebrations on 17 September with an initiative called “Light of Spain: Sorolla in American Collections”. The exhibition at the Meadows Museum includes little-known works from private collections. The curator of this exhibition is Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the artist’s great-granddaughter.

Sorolla at ARTIKA
At ARTIKA we have two exclusive editions that pay tribute to the artist: El mar de Sorolla (Sorolla’s Sea) and Los paisajes de Sorolla (Sorolla’s Landscapes). These art books reveal a little-known facet of the painter, bringing together his sketches and drawings from life.

These are the drawings which, through dedication and determination, allowed him to refine his precision with the brush. They were also decisive in developing his capacity for observation, which he knew how to transfer to the canvas with the spontaneity of his talent.

These two art books document the origin of his enormous expressive freedom. Sorolla understood that he needed to leave the studio and dissect reality in his notebooks to truly give shape to his ideas. The painter would walk along roads in search of first-hand impressions and observed the waves to capture their fleeting flashes of light.

Stroke by stroke, Joaquín Sorolla defined all the elements in his notebooks that continue to impress us in his paintings. ARTIKA books bring back the essence of the artist in El mar de Sorolla (Sorolla’s Sea) and Los paisajes de Sorolla (Sorolla’s Landscapes): they capture the light, the colours and the feeling of the Mediterranean landscape.

Children in the sea, Valencia Beach (Niños en el mar, Playa de Valencia, 1908). Particular collection.