16 July, 13.30 – 15.30
Spanish Gallery Conference Suite
Free, pre-booking essential as space is limited: https://aucklandproject.org/event/film-screening-zurbaran-and-his-twelve-sons/
Since 1756 Francisco de Zurbarán’s paintings of Jacob and His Twelve Sons have held a special place in the life of Bishop Auckland. Arantxa Aguirre’s beautiful film tells the story of these exceptional artworks and their intriguing history, following the path of their 2017/18 journey to museums in Dallas, New York, and Jerusalem, where they cast their spell over new audiences. Introducing the film screening, Zurbarán scholar Richard Jacques will place these paintings in the context of Zurbarán’s life and artistic output, sharing his insights on why Jacob and His Twelve Sons exert such power on all those that see them.
About the film:
Director: Arantxa Aguirre
Script: John Healey with the collaboration of Jonathan Brown
Producers: CEEH, The Auckland Project and Intervenciones Novo Film
Total running time: 72 minutes
This documentary recounts the history and significance of Jacob and his Twelve sons, a series of thirteen paintings completed by Francisco de Zurbarán in Seville around the year 1640. They may have been intended for the New World, although nothing is known of them until they were acquired in an auction by London merchant James Mendez seventy years later. In a compelling gesture, they were acquired by Bishop of Durham Richard Trevor in 1756, when debate around a bill on the emancipation of British Jewry was raging. He hung them in his dining room in Auckland Castle, where they remain to this day. Now, thanks to the initiative of a financier from that area, Jacob and his twelve sons have become a driver of regeneration in a community in the north of England. While renovation works were being completed in their home at Auckland Palace, the paintings were exhibited in the Meadows Museum in Dallas, The Frick Collection in New York and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. This film tracks their international travels, with contributions by known experts on Spanish painting as well as those behind an ambitious project using art as a tool for social transformation.
About the speaker: Richard Jacques is a PhD candidate in Art History at Durham University. His doctoral research, which is funded by the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, explores the language of suffering in the works of Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), examining how the artist’s preoccupation with verisimilitude and tactile painterly effects engaged the spiritual needs and psychological drives of his viewers. Richard also holds degrees in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art and Christian theology from Kings College London.
ARTES 