ARTES

Nigel Glendinning Memorial Lecture – Joaquín Sorolla: his life, his legacy and his London experience

At 6.30 pm on Thursday 27 March, 2014, Almudena Hernández de la Torre of the Sorolla Museum, Madrid, will give the annual Nigel Glendinning Memorial Lecture at the Instituto Cervantes, 102 Eaton Sq, London SW1W 9AN

Her lecture is entitled Joaquín Sorolla: his life, his legacy and his London experience

Entry is open to all and free to ARTES members. Guests and non-members will be asked to make a donation of £6 to ARTES

If you would like more information, please contact Morlin Ellis artesiberia@gmail.com

The Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Medal: Call for Submissions, deadline 31 January 2023

To encourage emerging scholars that are based in the UK, ARTES, in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain, awards an annual essay medal to the author of the best art-historical essay or study on a Spanish theme, which must be submitted in competition and judged by a reading Sub-Committee. The medal is named after Juan Facundo Riaño (1829-1901), the distinguished art historian who was partly responsible for a growing interest in Spanish culture in late nineteenth-century Britain. The winner is also awarded a cash prize of £400, and the runner-up is awarded a certificate and prize of £100 – both prizes are generously sponsored by the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain. Prize-winners also receive a year’s free membership to ARTES, and the winning essays are considered for publication in the annual visual arts issue of Hispanic Research Journal. See the information about eligibility and rules of competition. The deadline is 31st January 2023.

Entering the Essay Competition

The judges will be looking for evidence of originality of thought and high academic quality. Submissions must focus on the production or reception of the art, architecture or visual culture of Spain. Alternative contributions in the form of photo or video essays will also be considered, provided that they demonstrate originality, high academic quality and high production standards.

As a permanent reminder of the winner’s achievement, an essay medal is awarded, together with a cash prize of £400. The winning essay will be considered for publication in the annual visual arts issue of Hispanic Research Journal. The runner-up receives a prize of £100, and an essay so commended may also be considered for publication in Hispanic Research Journal. Both prize-winners also receive a year’s free membership to ARTES.

Essays are submitted by 31 January each year, and are read by the Essay Medal Committee, appointed by ARTES. The decision of the Committee shall be final. Presentation of the medal is usually made at a special ceremony in London in Summer of the same year, and the result is announced on the ARTES website.

Previous Winners

2022: Patricia Manzano Rodríguez, a PhD candidate at the University of Durham, for ‘The Upper half of Las Meninas’.

2021: Diana Bularca, formerly a MA student at the Courtauld, for ‘Wilfredo Lam’s Strategic Language’

2020: Dr Simon Park, an early career scholar at the University of Oxford, for ‘Chasing Wild Men (in Silver)’.

2019: No award

2018: Javier Vicente Arenas, a Masters student at the Warburg Institute, for ‘Constructing a “Transmediterranean” Identity: Rodrigo de Borgia’s Italian Angels in Valencia Cathedral (1472-81)’.

2017: David Cambronero, a MA student at The Courtauld, for ‘Lighting the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Caliphal Period’.

2016: Leah McBride, a PhD student at Glasgow University, for ‘‘The grave is only half full; who will help us fill it?’: The Politics of Trauma in Alfredo Jaar’s Rwanda Project‘.

2015: Rebekah Lee, a PhD student at the University of York, for ‘Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal and the Courtly Portrayal of Middle Age’.

2014: Lesley Thornton-Cronin, a first year PhD student at Glasgow University, for ‘Image-Making by Means of Metaphoric Transposition in the Work of Joan Miró’.

2013: Maite Usoz, a third year PhD student at King’s College, London, for ‘Sex and the City: Urban Eroticism in Rodrigo Muñoz Ballester’s Manuel Series’.

Regulations for the Essay Medal

1. Entrants should ideally be resident or studying in the UK, but exceptions may be made if entrants can demonstrate sustained engagement with students, scholars, objects or materials in the UK.

2. There is no age limit for entrants, but the Essay Medal Committee reserves the right to give preference to entrants who have not previously published in the field of Hispanic visual arts. We welcome submissions from researchers in a variety of circumstances, but envisage that most essays will be submitted from early career scholars, post-graduate students or undergraduates with exceptionally good end-of-degree dissertations. Details of degrees or qualifications, as well as previous publications, must be submitted together with the submission (ie in the cover email, but not in the main text.

3. Visual arts are defined in their broadest sense to include all material and visual culture, including film and photography, but our collaboration with the Spanish Embassy means that essays must focus on the visual culture of Spain (or works originally produced in Spain or by Spanish artists).

4. The essay must not have been previously published and must not have been awarded any national or international prize. A note of any departmental prizes awarded to it should accompany the email by which the submission is sent.

5. Essays may be up to 10,000 words in length, including bibliography (though this is not not necessary if full footnotes are given), all notes and appendices. Shorter submissions will not be penalised on grounds of length, but overlength essays will be refused. A word count and a summary of up to 250 words (additional to the work total) must be included. Submissions in the form of photo essays or videos (up to 25 minutes in length) will also be considered.

6. The submission should demonstrate original thinking. It may be based on a dissertation, and may involve original research, although submissions based on a survey of secondary material will also be considered if they are of suitable quality. However, the submission should be self-contained and especially prepared for this competition.

7. Entries must be written in English and double-spaced. Diagrams or illustrations should be included and captioned. Sources of information and images must be acknowledged, together with information about image rights.

8. The winning essay may be considered for publication in the visual arts issue of Hispanic Research Journal, subject to the usual process of refereeing, and to acceptance by the Editors, whose decision on this is final. In the event of the essay being accepted for publication, some reworking may be required. Essays may not be offered for publication elsewhere while they are sub judice.

9. In the case of any dispute about the award, the decision of the ARTES Essay Medal Committee shall be final.

10. ARTES reserves the right to make no award if none of the entries is considered worthy.

11. The closing date for entries is 31st January each year. Essays received after this date will not be considered.

12. A PDF of the essay, including images, should be sent to tom.nickson@courtauld.ac.uk To ensure anonymity please do not put your name on the essay.

13. Any queries should be directed to tom.nickson@courtauld.ac.uk

2014 Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Medal Prizegiving Ceremony

ARTES is delighted to announce that the 2014 Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Medal has been won by Lesley Thornton-Cronin, a first year PhD student at Glasgow University, for her essay ‘Image-Making by Means of Metaphoric Transposition in the Work of Joan Miró’.

The runner-up prize is awarded to Maria Teresa Chicote Pompanin, a masters student at the Warburg Institute, London, for her essay ‘Subsecuentis picturae. Una mirada medieval desde las Vanguardias’.

Members and guests are invited to the Awards Ceremony at the Spanish Embassy, at which Lesley will give a short presentation based on her essay. The Ceremony will take place on Thursday 20th March 2014 at 6.30 pm and be preceded by drinks at 6.00 pm. If you would like to attend the event, please contact Beatriz Mérida directly at the Embassy at beatriz.merida@maec.es. Please note that photo ID is required for entry.

ARTES CEEH Scholarships for PhD or post-doc students to visit the UK to research Spanish visual culture before 1900

Thanks to the generosity of CEEH (Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica), ARTES awards a £3000 scholarship for PhD students or post-doctoral scholars who wish to conduct research in the UK, and who are working on any aspect of Spanish visual culture before 1900. Doctoral students or those who received their doctorate less than four years before the application deadline may apply for this scholarship provided that they were or are registered for doctoral study at a university in Spain. The deadline for applications is 31st January each year. Scholarship winners will be informed by 1st March, and are invited to attend a ceremony at the ARTES AGM in June. Please read the guidelines below.

Scholarship application guidelines.

Applications should be made in English as a single MS Word or PDF file and sent to artesscholarships@gmail.com. References may, however, be sent in Spanish. Applicants are requested to include ‘Travel to UK Scholarship’ in the email subject. They should not expect acknowledgement of receipt.
All applications should include: a) a project title, b) a max 100-word project summary, c) a max 600-word description of the research to be conducted (including explanation of the necessity of travel); d) a short breakdown of how the money will be spent, together with details of any other funding received; e) an academic CV. Applicants should ensure that an academic advisor sends a reference to the same email address by the 31st January deadline. Applications without a reference will not be considered.
Candidates may apply for our other scholarships and awards offered by ARTES, but are unlikely to be successful in more than one category in any one year.
Application is open to any student or scholar who can demonstrate compliance with the criteria set out above, other than employees of CEEH, committee members of ARTES, or their immediate families. Scholarships are not awarded to students who have not yet begun their programme of study, are valid for one year only, and are not renewable.
Applications will be assessed according to the following criteria: Originality of research, significance of research, feasibility of successful completion, academic rigour (command of the field, spelling, fluency etc), potential of the applicant (an assessment of the strength of the CV, taking into account the student’s current status), financial need, value for money, strength of reference, necessity of travel.
Successful scholarship winners will be informed by 1st March, and are invited to attend a presentation ceremony at the ARTES AGM in the Summer. They are required to write a 600-word report on their funded research project, to be sent to artesscholarships@gmail.com within nine months of receipt of the scholarship.
Any publications arising from research supported by these scholarships should include acknowledgement of ARTES and CEEH.
The scholarships come with no institutional affiliation, and ARTES and CEEH cannot take responsibility for the support or welfare of scholarship holders.
The decision of the Scholarship Committee shall be final. The Committee reserves the right to make no awards in cases where it deems that applications are not of satisfactory quality. CEEH and Artes accept no legal responsibility to any applicant or third party arising from this notice, or the award or otherwise of a scholarship. The Scholarship Committee will not enter into correspondence with unsuccessful applicants or their academic advisors regarding its decisions.

ARTES visit to Madrid, 28-29 January 2014

We have been kindly invited by Deputy Director of the Prado and ARTES member Gabriele Finaldi to visit the current exhibition in Madrid on Velázquez and the Family of Philip IV. Javier Portús, Chief Curator of Spanish Painting and Curator of the exhibition will kindly take us on a private tour on Tuesday 28^th January 2014, starting at 10.00 and meeting at the Puerta de Jerónimos. After the tour, members will have the opportunity to view for themselves some of the paintings highlighted in Gabriele’s 2012 ARTES Lecture, The Collections of the Prado: new works and restored paintings Director of Conservation and Research at the Prado (featured in InformARTES, 2012, pp. 6-8).

The following day (for those able to stay another night) Mercedes González Amezúa Curator of Paintings at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando has also kindly agreed to take us on a tour of the Academia to tie in with the popular talk she gave earlier this year for the 2013 ARTES Lecture, Highlights from the Collection of Manuel Godoy & Recent Acquisitions of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (featured in the forthcoming edition of InformARTES). We will meet at the ticket office at the entrance to the Academia, in front of the Hércules Farnese at 10.30am.

We will try and organise a meal together on the Tuesday evening. Please contact Morlin.Ellis@tiscali.co.uk as soon as possible if you are interested and are able to join us for both or either of these two visits.

ARTES CEEH PhD Scholarships for students at a UK University

Thanks to the generous support of CEEH (Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica), ARTES awards one £3,000 scholarship each year for PhD students registered for a full- or part-time doctoral degree at a UK university who are working on any aspect of Spanish visual culture before 1900. The scholarship is intended to contribute towards the costs of tuition, living and/or research, and therefore students with full funding are not eligible. The deadline for all applications is 31st January each year, successful applicants are informed by 1st March, and the Awards Ceremony is held at the ARTES AGM in the same year. Please read the general guidelines below.

Scholarship application guidelines

Applications should be made in English as a single MS Word or PDF file and sent to artesscholarships@gmail.com. Applicants are requested to include ‘PhD Scholarship’ in the email subject, but should not expect acknowledgement of receipt.
All applications should include: a) a project title, b) a max 100-word project summary, c) a max 600-word description of the research to be conducted; d) a short breakdown of how the money will be spent, together with details of any other funding received; e) an academic CV. Applicants should ensure that an academic advisor sends a reference to the same email address by the 31st March deadline. Applications without a reference will not be considered.
Candidates may apply for other scholarships and awards from ARTES, but are unlikely to be successful in more than one category in any one year.
Application is open to any student or scholar who can demonstrate compliance with the criteria set out above, other than employees of CEEH, committee members of ARTES, or their immediate families. Scholarships are not awarded to students who have not yet begun their programme of study, are valid for one year only, and are not renewable.
Applications will be assessed according to the following criteria: Originality of research, significance of research, feasibility of successful completion, academic rigour (command of the field, spelling, fluency etc), potential of the applicant (an assessment of the strength of the CV, taking into account the student’s current status), financial need, strength of reference.
Successful scholarship winners are normally informed by 1st March, and are invited to attend a presentation ceremony held at the ARTES AGM in the Summer. They are required to write a 600-word report on their funded research project, to be sent to artesscholarships@gmail.com within nine months of receipt of the scholarship.
Any publications arising from research supported by these scholarships should include acknowledgement of ARTES and CEEH.
The scholarships come with no institutional affiliation, and ARTES and CEEH cannot take responsibility for the support or welfare of scholarship holders.
The decision of the Scholarship Committee shall be final. The Committee reserves the right to make no awards in cases where it deems that applications are not of satisfactory quality. CEEH and ARTES accept no legal responsibility to any applicant or third party arising from this notice, or the award or otherwise of a scholarship. The Scholarship Committee will not enter into correspondence with unsuccessful applicants or their academic advisors regarding its decisions.

Artes visit to Beyond El Dorado at the British Museum

Bird pectoral, Popayan, gold alloy, AD100-1600, Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum — Bird pectoral, Popayan, gold alloy, AD100-1600. Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum

We are pleased to announce a private Artes visit to the British Museum’s Beyond El Dorado exhibition on Thursday 20 February 2014. We shall be meeting at 8.20 am for a 8.30 am at the main front gates (the museum is not open to the public at this time). Curator Elisenda Vila Llonch has kindly agreed to give us an introduction to the exhibition.

Please contact Morlin if you would like to attend – morlin.ellis@Tiscali.co.uk. Members are very welcome to bring guests. There is no charge for members but we do ask for a £6 donation per person for guests.

Artes CEEH Travel Scholarships

Thanks to the generous support of CEEH (Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica), ARTES awards a number of travel scholarships to final year undergraduates and postgraduate students registered for a full or part-time degree course at a UK university who are working on any aspect of Spanish visual culture before 1900. The deadline for all applications is 31st January and the Scholarship Committee usually informs successful applicants by 1st March. Winners are invited to attend a special awards ceremony at the ARTES AGM in the summer. Students may apply for up to £1000 towards the costs of travel to Spain for research purposes (which may include field work, attendance at a conference, or other recognised forms of research). Please read the guidelines below.

Scholarship application guidelines.

Applications should be made in English as a single MS Word or PDF file and sent to artesscholarships@gmail.com. Applicants are requested to include ‘Travel Scholarship’ in the email subject, but should not expect acknowledgement of receipt.
All applications should include: a) project title, b) a max 100-word project summary, c) a max 600-word explanation of the research to be conducted (including explanation of the necessity of travel); d) a short breakdown of how the money will be spent, together with details of any other funding received; e) an academic CV. Applicants should ensure that an academic advisor sends a reference to the same email address by the 31st January deadline: this may be in English or Spanish. Applications without a reference will not be considered.
Candidates may apply for any other scholarship or award offered by ARTES, but are unlikely to be successful in more than one category in any one year.
Application is open to any student or scholar who can demonstrate compliance with the criteria set out above, other than employees of CEEH, committee members of ARTES, or their immediate families. Scholarships are not awarded to students who have not yet begun their programme of study, are valid for one year only, and are not renewable. Applications may be submitted for travel conducted in the 12 months prior to the submission deadline, though funding for such trips is likely to be considered less urgent than for forthcoming trips that would not be possible without funding.
Applications will be assessed according to the following criteria: Originality of research, significance of research, feasibility of successful completion, academic rigour (command of the field, spelling, fluency etc), potential of the applicant (an assessment of the strength of the CV, taking into account the student’s current status), financial need, value for money, strength of reference, necessity of travel.
Successful scholarship winners are normally informed by 1st March, and are invited to attend a presentation at the ARTES AGM in the Summer. They are required to write a 600-word report on their funded research project, to be sent to artesscholarships@gmail.com within nine months of receipt of the scholarship
Any publications arising from research supported by these scholarships should include acknowledgement of ARTES and CEEH.
The scholarships come with no institutional affiliation, and ARTES and CEEH cannot take responsibility for the support or welfare of scholarship holders.
The decision of the Scholarship Committee shall be final. The Committee reserves the right to make no awards in cases where it deems that applications are not of satisfactory quality. CEEH and ARTES accept no legal responsibility to any applicant or third party arising from this notice, or the award or otherwise of a scholarship. The Scholarship Committee will not enter into correspondence with unsuccessful applicants or their academic advisors regarding its decisions.

Velázquez portraits exhibition at the Prado

Velazquez, Juan Martínez Montañés, Prado

Tues 8 Oct 2013 – Sat 9 Feb 2014, The Prado, Madrid. Velázquez y la familia de Felipe IV 1650-1680 (the English catalogue is titled, Velázquez, Las Meninas and the Late Royal Portraits). Jerónimos Building, Room C, El Museo del Prado, Ruiz de Alarcón, 23, 28014 Madrid. www.museodelprado.es . Curated by Javier Portús, Chief Curator of Spanish Painting at the Museo del Prado.

In chronological terms, the exhibition opens in 1650 during Velázquez’s second period in Rome, at which date he had already spent more than a year outside Spain. In Rome, the artist painted around a dozen portraits of individuals associated with the papal court, of which four of the surviving six are included in the exhibition.

They constitute a separate chapter within the artist’s oeuvre and one in which he markedly extended his expressive registers in order to brilliantly convey the personalities and concerns of these sitters.

The exhibition opens with the Portrait of Innocent X from Apsley House, London. A version of the celebrated portrait in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Velázquez brought it back with him to Madrid. It will now be exhibited in Spain for the first time.

Also on display in this gallery are the portraits of Cardinal Camillo Massimo (The Bankes Collection, National Trust, UK), Cardinal Camillo Astalli Pamphilj (Hispanic Society of America, New York), and Ferdinando Brandani (Museo del Prado), chief clerk to the papal secretariat, the latter a new identification of a work previously known as “the Pope’s Barber”.

While Velázquez was in Rome, Mariana of Austria had married Philip IV and the city welcomed the arrival of the new Queen in late 1649. The second section in the exhibition focuses on the artist’s return to the capital in 1651 after much insisting on the King’s part. It presents comparisons between some of the Roman portraits and those Velázquez executed for the court after his return. Philip IV (Museo del Prado), The Infanta María Teresa (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Queen Mariana of Austria (Museo del Prado) reveal how the painter once again deployed the hieratic distance evident in his earlier royal portraits as opposed to the expressivity of the Roman period.

This return to the court constitutes the core of the exhibition, comprising the royal portraits that Velázquez produced from his arrival in Madrid until his death in 1660. Together they form a separate chapter in his career due to their technical and iconographic uniqueness and exceptionally high quality.

At this period the world of women and children makes its appearance in the artist’s work and is the subject of the third room, which includes The Infanta María Teresa, Prince Felipe Próspero and The Infanta Margarita in blue and gold, all loaned from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. During this period Velázquez’s colour became denser and more rich and varied, while the compositions included spatial references arising from the settings. Particularly outstanding within this group is Las Meninas, which will not be hung in the exhibition (remaining in its habitual location in the Museum) but which is a key element in this group given that it represents a remarkable defence of the genre of portrait painting. Its complexity makes its comparable to the most erudite type of “history painting” and it can be seen as the finest example of the level of sophistication achieved by the Spanish court at a high point of cultural creativity. In addition, Las Meninas also represents a profound exercise of social and professional affirmation on Velázquez’s part through the inclusion of his self-portrait.

The demand for images following the new Queen’s arrival and the birth of infants and princes meant that Velázquez was obliged to produce more portraits, to which he responded by setting up an active studio that is represented in this exhibition by various studio versions of originals by the artist, created under his supervision. They include The Infanta Margarita and Queen Mariana of Austria (both Musée du Louvre, Paris). The exhibition concludes with examples of court portraiture by Velázquez’s successors Martínez del Mazo and Carreño. Both artists looked to their predecessor’s solutions in order to move royal iconography towards a more complex, Baroque style and to create a particularly Spanish typology for the court portrait that differs from other European schools in its inclusion of particular rooms in the royal palaces as the settings for these works.

The catalogue

The accompanying catalogue –Spanish and English editions – includes three essays: the principal one by the exhibition’s curator Javier Portús; another on painting at the Spanish court after the death of Velázquez by Miguel Morán Turina of the Universidad Complutense, Madrid; and a third that analyses aspects of the court in Vienna by Andrea Sommer-Mathis of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.