The Museo de Bellas Artes de València celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Spanish Academy in Rome

From 26 October 2023 to 11 February 2024, the Museo de Bellas Artes de València presents an exhibition commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Spanish Academy in Rome.

Source: Museo de Bellas Artes de València · Image: José Benlliure Ortiz, “View of Rome from the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts”. Oil on canvas. Fine Arts Museum of Valencia.

In 2023 it will be 150 years since, on 8 August 1973, the government of the First Spanish Republic published in the “Gaceta de Madrid” the decree of creation and the first regulations of the School of Fine Arts in Rome, which shortly afterwards would be renamed the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. From the outset, the aim was to support artistic training by giving official backing to the historic presence of Spanish artists in Rome, a city whose cultural impact remained strong even when Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London and New York emerged as other possible references.

In this history of the Academy, the presence of important names in Valencian culture stands out, and to celebrate this anniversary the Museo de Bellas Artes de València is hosting an exhibition that traces the history of the Academy, whose unusual continuity allows us to understand from a privileged perspective not only the history of Spain during those 150 years, but also the changes produced in the connection of the Spanish State with artistic promotion or relations with Italy and, by extension, with Europe.

The exhibition is divided into seven thematic sections that cover, separately and together, the entire time span from 1873 to the present day, and which bring together pieces produced at the Academy or in relation to it, together with contextual material.