Seventeen caves in the north of Spain and their prehistoric drawings join Altamira as a World Heritage protected site. The site is now called the "Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain." From the visitor's point of view, the main advantage of the added caves is that most of them can be visited - Altamira itself cannot. The 17 new caves are in the Basque Country (3), Asturias (5) and especially Cantabria (9), where eight of the caves are open to the public, in limited numbers.

Posted by : John Ross on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 - 09:09 AM 637 reads

The room housing Picasso's Guernica in the Reina Sofia Modern Art Centre has been remodelled to allow it to be seen better. Before this, viewers were obliged to stand too close to the enormous canvas to be able to get a proper perspective of the picture, or look at it from an angle. This is the first in a series of innovations announced by the Reina Sofia's new director, Manuel Borja-Villel, who has emerged as a leading figure among world museum directors. Read more about the Guernica, Picasso, the Spanish Civil War and Borja-Villel.

Posted by : John Ross on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 07:44 AM 665 reads

The exhibition now on at the Prado Museum looks set to attract almost as much attention as the rest of the collection. Under the heading “The Spanish Portrait. From El Greco to Picasso,” the exhibition features 84 paintings from the Prado's own stock or on loan. In the latter group, the Portrait of Don Justino Neve by Murillo from the National Gallery in London, and The Duchess of Alba by Goya and Portrait of a Girl by Velázquez from the Hispanic Society of America are particularly noteworthy.

Posted by : John Ross on Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 02:40 PM 1423 reads