Exhibit at BYU Museum of Art will feature many Catholic items

Courtesy of The Hispanic Society of America, New York, N.Y. Presented to the Hispanic Society by Arc

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“Virgin of the Immaculate Conception” by Juan Carreño de Miranda (1614-1685) is among the artwork that will be on display at the BYU Museum of Art’s “Spain and the Hispanic World” exhibit. Oil on canvas, 211 x 145 cm.

PROVO — A painting of St. Jerome by El Greco, a baptismal font displaying Moorish artistic influences as well as Christian iconography, and a 13th-century Vulgate Bible are among the more than 150 artworks, relics and antiquities included in the “Spain and the Hispanic World” exhibit at Brigham Young University’s Museum of Art.

The exhibit, which opens Jan. 26, is sponsored by the Hispanic Society of New York; it was shown at the Prado in Madrid in 2017 and last year at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Included are “prehistoric Iberian earthenware, Roman-era sculpture, medieval illuminated manuscripts, Catholic liturgical artifacts, maps from the Age of Exploration, Latin American jewelry, and masterpieces from iconic Spanish artists from across the centuries,” states the exhibit website, Spain and the Hispanic World, (moa.byu.edu or https://moa.byu.edu/spain-and-the-hispanic-world).

BYU worked with the Hispanic Society of New York for three years to bring the exhibit to Utah, said Janalee Emmer, the museum’s director.

The “breadth of art and culture and ideas that are included – the 4,000 years, going back to Bell Beaker culture and then to the 20th century,” as well as the interdisciplinary ideas and various media, including oil paintings, ceramics, maps, illuminated manuscripts and different religious influences make the exhibit exciting, Emmer said.

Philipp Malzl, the museum’s head of education, agrees. “The story of this exhibition really begins around 2,000 B.C. and it goes all the way to the early 20th century,” he said, adding that the items will for the most part be displayed chronologically, beginning with artifacts from the Bell Beaker culture in Iberia. Everyday items such as door knockers are included alongside rosaries and other devotional objects.

Among the items that may be of most interest to Catholics are several El Greco paintings, several versions of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, a St. Lucy by Zubarán, reliquaries and a monstrance.

“It’s the largest exhibition in terms of space and number of objects that we’ve had in many years,” Malzl said. “What an opportunity to have some art history at a textbook level displayed here in Provo, Utah. From Velásquez to Goya … Zubarán – all the big names along with those that are perhaps lesser known, but they were all contemporaries of these great artists.”

“Spain and the Hispanic World” will run Jan. 26 through June 15 at Brigham Young University’s Museum of Art. Among events associated with the exhibit will be a gallery talk with Janalee Emmer, the museum’s director, an academic symposium and a Via Dolorsa (Stations of the Cross) on Good Friday. For a complete schedule and details of dates and times, visit moa.byu.edu or https://moa.byu.edu/spain-and-the-hispanic-world. For information in Spanish, visit España y el Mundo Hispánico, moa.byu.edu or https://moa.byu.edu/espana-y-el-mundo-hispanico.