The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the Prado Museum in Madrid today announced the launch of a three-year partnership, marking the first such international program for Spain’s national museum. The multifaceted collaboration encompasses the loan of major paintings from the Prado, interdisciplinary research at SMU, an unprecedented internship exchange between the two museums, and a range of public programs. The Meadows is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. 

The Prado and the Meadows will be organizing groundbreaking focused exhibitions around pivotal masterpieces on loan from the Prado that will explore the broader cultural, political, religious, and historical contexts for the works. El Greco’s monumental painting, Pentecost, will be the first of three loans to be presented in Dallas, on display from September 12, 2010 – February 1, 2011.

Next year, the Prado will lend the Meadows Jusepe de Ribera’s Mary Magdalene followed by Diego Velázquez’s full length portrait of Philip IV in 2012. The museum will produce a bilingual publication presenting new research across multiple subject areas timed to the installation of each loan, and will organize a series of symposia and educational programming with national and international scholars.

In the fall of 2011, the two museums will initiate The Algur H. Meadows/Prado Internships, an annual exchange with one appointment made by each institution. This will be the first curatorial internship ever to be mounted by the Prado with a foreign institution. Sponsored by the Meadows Museum, the internships will provide graduate students with the opportunity to gain professional and international experience, and to work closely with the curatorial staff at each institution.

“After frequent visits to Madrid in the 1950s, museum founder Algur H. Meadows had a vision to establish a ‘Prado on the Prairie’, and built an incredible collection of Spanish art that forms the foundation of the museum today,” said Meadows Museum Director Mark Roglán. “This new partnership is another step in realizing his aspiration.”

Over the course of Roglán’s tenure, the Meadows has mounted numerous exhibitions presenting works that rarely travel to the U.S., partnering with major Spanish institutions including the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, Patrimonio Nacional, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. The collaboration with the Prado represents a natural extension of the existing relationship between the two museums, as the Meadows has often lent works to special exhibitions at the Prado and collaborated on research.

Prado Director Miguel Zugaza said, “This special collaboration with the Meadows Museum will bring three of the finest works in the Prado’s collections to a new audience in the United States, where they will each be shown in a new and revealing context. I am looking forward to this project.”

In tandem with the installation of Pentecost this fall, the Meadows will present two new exhibitions:

• Spanish Muse: A Contemporary Response: featuring works by contemporary artists responding to iconic works in Spain. On view from September 12 – December 12, 2010, the exhibition will include work by artists such as Thomas Struth, Eve Sussman, Yinka Shonibare, Manolo Valdés, José Manuel Ballester, and Claudio Bravo.

• Sultans and Saints: Spain’s Confluence of Cultures: an exploration of the religious character of Spain and its impact on El Greco’s style and subject matter. The show will be on display from September 12, 2010 - February 1, 2011, and will feature works of art from the Meadows and other SMU collections in a variety of media, including manuscripts, ceramics, painting and sculpture, all reflective of the cultural and artistic exchange between Jews, Muslims, and Christians from the period of the Convivencia to the Counter Reformation.

The essays featured in the publication for Pentecost will include the following:

• El Greco in Toledo: the Artist’s Clientele” by Dr. Richard Kagan, Professor of History, The Johns Hopkins University

• Pentecost in the Altarpiece of the Colegio de Doña María de Aragón: The Synthesis of El Greco’s Final Style” by Dr. Leticia Ruiz Gómez, Head of the Department of Spanish Painting from 1700, Prado Museum

• Flaming Tongues: Valences of Pentecost in Early Modern Spain” by Dr. Hilaire Kallendorf, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies, Texas A&M University

• El Greco’s Painting Technique: The Restoration of Pentecost” by Rafael Alonso Alonso, Conservator, Prado Museum