Kicking off its 75th anniversary season and the 100th anniversary of the city, the Boca Raton Museum of Art is showcasing Splendor and Passion: Baroque Spain and Its Empire, a collection of 57 paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries on loan from the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in New York City.
The HSM&L, as it is known, has the most extensive collection of Hispanic art and literature outside of Spain and Latin America.
At the Boca Museum, paintings considered masterpieces by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos), Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo — some religious and others allegorical — have been rarely seen and are making their first (and probably, only) debut in Florida.
Other artists from that period include Jusepe de Ribera and Francisco de Zurbarán.
“The Museum’s 75th anniversary coinciding with Boca Raton’s 100th anniversary called for a special exhibition,” says Irvin Lippman, executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art, who is ending his tenure at the museum in February 2025. “‘Splendor and Passion’ offers a rare glimpse into Spain’s rich artistic heritage during a dynamic, transformative and complex era of colonial expansion.”
Guillaume Kientz, CEO and director of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, said: “We are thrilled to partner with the Boca Raton Museum of Art for the world premiere of Splendor and Passion.
“We don’t like to keep our works in storage,” he says. “We want our works of art to be on view to the public, especially in places with Latin American or Spanish connections, such as Florida.”
According to Kientz, highlights of the Splendor and Passion exhibit — which runs through March 30 — include the works by El Greco, considered the last great artist of the Renaissance, with his 1590 portrait St. Luke, his Saint James the Great, painted in 1610, and his 1575 Pietà (The Lamentation of Christ).
Also a highlight from the Spanish Golden Age are the works of Velázquez, the most important painter in Spain, known for his formal state portraits of King Philip IV and other figures of the Spanish monarchy.
On display are his 1650 regal portrait of Cardinal Astalli, and his 1640 Portrait of a Little Girl, known for its naturalism and sense of intimacy, plus a selection of his works from his early period through his later works, which become more flamboyant in style.
To coincide with the museum’s anniversary, the museum has on display, Las Meninas from an Artificial Light, a meticulous copy by Spanish conceptual artist Félix De La Concha of Velázquez’s famous 1656 painting that hangs in the Prado in Madrid, painted from an online high-resolution image.
Also on view is a triptych by De La Concha, commissioned by the museum as a tribute to the city’s centennial in 2025. Painted en plein air, the local scene depicts Dixie Highway, the Flagler railroad and Camino Real, with Addison Mizner’s building, The Addison, as the centerpiece.
Another highlight from the Siglo de Oro, a period that saw the rise of the Spanish Empire and its influence on Europe and the Americas, is Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s The Prodigal Son Among the Swine (1656-1665), an oil on canvas depicting the plight of the poor.
The exhibit also includes a Latin American section featuring works from Mexico and Peru, highlighting the artistic vitality of work from this part of the world.
“It’s a story of immigration,” Kientz says. “Many of the artists born in Spain migrated and became established in Mexico and Peru, and others who were born in those countries adapted and established a new artistic language.”
The Spanish Baroque style spread throughout the region and merged and blended with the cultures and styles of each country to create new and innovative styles combining Western influences, local traditions and indigenous techniques. These works went on to influence not only European artists, but artists across the globe, shaping artistic movements in the Americas and beyond.
As South Florida has become a global art destination, and a mecca for Latin American art and artists, Kientz believes the exhibit will speak to its viewers.
“There is an appetite for art in Florida and it’s serendipity that this exhibit and the ‘Sorolla and the Sea’ exhibit at the Norton Museum of Art, also part of the HSM&L collection, came about at the same time,” says Kientz.
Sorolla and the Sea at the Norton includes more than 40 works of art on view for the first time in more than 100 years. The companion exhibit highlights the work of impressionist Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923), known as the “Spanish painter of light.”
Even Claude Monet, the French impressionist painter, known for his study of light, was in awe of Sorolla, says Kientz, and called him the “master of light” for his depictions of light on water. Sorolla, who loved to paint seascapes, balanced the Spanish tradition of Realism with Modernist trends of the day, using unmixed colors and freer brushwork.
Kientz says it’s no coincidence that Sorolla’s seascape paintings were selected to exhibit in Florida, where the coastal landscape mimics Sorolla’s own shoreline scenes of Valencia, Spain.
“Sorolla is one of my favorite artists and I hope he becomes a favorite of our visitors as well,” says Ghislain d’Humières, CEO of the Norton Museum of Art. “My vision is that Sorolla’s landscapes, seascapes, portraits and depictions of the people of Spain will inspire visitors to explore European masterworks from his contemporaries and influences in the Norton’s collection.”
The exhibit is divided into five sections, including “Life and Work,” “Beach Scenes,” “The Vision of Spain,” “The Fisherman’s Life” and “Plein-Air,” which highlights paintings the artist completed outdoors, including a portrait of Louis Comfort Tiffany, painted in 1911.
Of particular note is Sorolla’s 1903 Beaching the Boat, one of the most important paintings of the 19th and 20th century, on a long-term loan from HSM&L to the Norton Museum. The painting captures the evening light and the tradition of Spanish fishermen using teams of oxen to beach their boats at the end of each day.
Kientz explains the significance of the painting this way: “The painting is of importance, not only because of its scale, but because paintings of that dimensions were traditionally about the lives and feats of the powerful and the wealthy.
“In ‘Beaching the Boat,’ Sorolla makes the fishermen the heroes of the story,” he says. “He pays homage to their hard work, the nobility of their activities, critical to the community (feeding the city’s residents), in a lyrical symphony of colors, light and sea waves.”
The two exhibits mark a significant achievement for the HSM&L and the opportunity for the viewing public to see these rare works and signifiers of Spain’s Golden Age up close and personal.
Kientz says it’s also the first time the Norton Museum of Art has partnered with the Boca Raton Museum of Art in a joint venture. In honor of that collaboration, the two museums are offering a $5 discount to non-members for the two shows and reciprocal admission for members.
“We’re thrilled to have facilitated these two exhibits,” he says. “South Florida has never received so many big names from the Spanish school at the same time.
“I hope people will come out and take advantage of these rarely seen masterpieces by some of Spain’s most renowned painters,” Kientz says.
If you go
Splendor and Passion runs through March 30 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real (Mizner Park), Boca Raton. Sorolla and the Sea runs through April 13 at the Norton Museum of Art, 1450 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach.