The
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, or in Spanish
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, is an art museum near the Prado Museum in
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
. It is known as a part of the
"Golden Triangle of ArtThe The Golden Triangle of Art is made up of three important art museums that are close to each other in the centre of Madrid, Spain, forming a rough triangle on a map. The three art museums are the Prado Museum, , Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, featuring more modern art, and the...
", which also includes the
PradoThe Museo del Prado is a museum and art gallery located in Madrid, the capital of Spain. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection....
and the
Reina SofiaThe Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is the official name of Spain's national museum of 20th century art . The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992 and is named for Queen Sofia of Spain...
galleries. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the historical gaps in its counterparts' collections: in the Prado's case this includes Italian primitives and works from the
EnglishThe English School of international relations theory, also known as Liberal Realism, Buzanism, the LSE School, the International Society school or the British institutionalists, maintains that there is a 'society of states' at the international level, despite the condition of 'anarchy'...
,
DutchDutch School may refer to:*Dutch School *Dutch School...
and
German school*German School of Montevideo*German School of Athens*German School of Milan*German School of Lisbon*German School of Manila*German School of San Salvador*German School of Guayaquil...
s, while in the case of the Reina Sofia the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, once the second largest private collection in the world after the British
Royal CollectionThe Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as...
, includes Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the second half of the 20th century, with over 1,600 paintings.
The
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, or in Spanish
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, is an art museum near the Prado Museum in
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
. It is known as a part of the
"Golden Triangle of ArtThe The Golden Triangle of Art is made up of three important art museums that are close to each other in the centre of Madrid, Spain, forming a rough triangle on a map. The three art museums are the Prado Museum, , Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, featuring more modern art, and the...
", which also includes the
PradoThe Museo del Prado is a museum and art gallery located in Madrid, the capital of Spain. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection....
and the
Reina SofiaThe Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is the official name of Spain's national museum of 20th century art . The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992 and is named for Queen Sofia of Spain...
galleries. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the historical gaps in its counterparts' collections: in the Prado's case this includes Italian primitives and works from the
EnglishThe English School of international relations theory, also known as Liberal Realism, Buzanism, the LSE School, the International Society school or the British institutionalists, maintains that there is a 'society of states' at the international level, despite the condition of 'anarchy'...
,
DutchDutch School may refer to:*Dutch School *Dutch School...
and
German school*German School of Montevideo*German School of Athens*German School of Milan*German School of Lisbon*German School of Manila*German School of San Salvador*German School of Guayaquil...
s, while in the case of the Reina Sofia the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, once the second largest private collection in the world after the British
Royal CollectionThe Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as...
, includes Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the second half of the 20th century, with over 1,600 paintings. The competition was won after in 1986 Baron Thyssen having tried to enlarge his Museum in
Villa Favorita and searched for a location in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
.
History of the collection
The collection started in the 1920s as a private collection by
Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de KászonHeinrich Thyssen , since June 22, 1907 Heinrich Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva, was a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector.-Biography:...
(1875-1947) and later expanded by his son
Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-BornemiszaHans Henrik Ágost Gábor Tasso Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva , a noted industrialist and art collector, was a Dutch-born Swiss citizen with a Hungarian title, a legal resident of Monaco for tax purposes, with a declared second residency in the United Kingdom, but in actuality...
(1921-2002), who assembled most of the works from his relatives' collections and proceeded to acquire large numbers of new works to produce what is one of the world's finest private art collections.
In 1985, the Baron married Carmen Cervera (a former
Miss SpainMiss Spain or Miss España is a Spanish beauty pageant for young women. Early contests took place in Spain until the advent of civil war in 1936, followed by the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, which did not permit beauty pageants until 1961....
1961) and introduced her to art collecting. Carmen's influence was decisive in persuading the Baron to decide on the future of his collection and cede the collection to Spain. The museum was opened in 1992 after an agreement was reached between the Baron and the Spanish government. A year later the collection was bought outright.
The Baroness remains involved with the museum. She personally decided the
salmon pinkThe color salmon pink comes in two shades, light salmon pink and salmon pink.-Light Salmon Pink:The color light salmon pink is displayed at the right. Light salmon pink is a light pink color that resembles the color salmon. The name is derived from the flesh color of the pink salmon...
tone of the interior walls and in May 2006 publicly demonstrated against plans of the Mayor of Madrid,
Alberto Ruiz-GallardónAlberto Ruiz-Gallardón Jiménez is a Spanish politician and mayor of Madrid. A stalwart of the conservative People's Party , he has previously been a leading figure in various local and national legislative bodies.-Personal life:...
to redevelop the
Paseo del PradoThe Paseo del Prado is one of the main boulevards in Madrid, Spain. It extends north to south from the Plaza de Cibeles to the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V , with the Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo lying approximately in the middle...
as she thought the works and traffic would damage the collection and the museum's appearance.
The collection
The old masters were mainly bought by the elder Baron, while Hans focused more on the 19th and 20th century, resulting in a collection that spans eight centuries of European painting, without claiming to give an all-encompassing view but rather a series of highlights.
One of the focal points is the early European painting, with a major collection of trecento and quattrocento (i.e. 14th and 15th century) Italian paintings by
DuccioDuccio di Buoninsegna was one of the most influential Italian artists of his time. Born in Siena, Tuscany, he worked mostly with pigment and egg tempera and like most of his contemporaries he painted religious subject matters...
, and his contemporaries, and works of the early
FlemishThe Flemish people , the Flemings or the Flemish are the over six million people of Flanders, the northern region of the country Belgium — and the majority of all Belgians....
and
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
painters like
Jan Van EyckJan van Eyck or Johannes de Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
,
Albrecht DürerAlbrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
, and
Hans HolbeinHans Holbein may refer to two German painters:* Hans Holbein the Elder father of Hans the Younger* Hans Holbein the Younger , better known of the two, court artist to King Henry VIII of England...
. Other highlights include works by the most famous
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
and
BaroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
painters, including
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, born 1473/1490 , died 27 August 1576, better known as Titian , was the leading painter of the 16th-century Venetian school of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno , in the Republic of Venice...
,
Sebastiano del PiomboSebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the Venetian...
,
CaravaggioMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610...
,
RubensSir Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality...
, Van Dyck,
MurilloBartolomé Esteban Murillo , was a Spanish painter, one of the most important figures in Baroque painting in Spain. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...
,
RembrandtRembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history...
and
Frans HalsFrans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter especially famous for portraiture. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in...
and wonderful portraits by
Domenico GhirlandaioDomenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Among his many apprentices was Michelangelo.-Early years:...
and
Vittore CarpaccioVittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...
. Also important for the Museum's collection are Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by artists like
Claude MonetClaude Monet also known as Oscar Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet
[ giverny.org...]
, Auguste Renoir,
Edgar DegasEdgar Degas
[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas , was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
and
Vincent Van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far reaching influence on 20th century art for its vivid colors and emotional impact. He suffered from anxiety and increasingly frequent bouts of mental illness throughout his life, and died largely unknown, at the age...
, as well as twentieth century
masterpiecesMasterpieces is a compilation album by Bob Dylan. It was released in Japan and Australia in anticipation for Bob Dylan's 1978 tour. It is more or less a greatest hits collection spanning his entire career up that point...
like a Cubist work by Picasso or late works by
Piet MondrianPieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1912 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
and
Edward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
.
A collection of works from the museum are housed in Barcelona in the
Museu Nacional d'Art de CatalunyaThe National Art Museum of Catalonia , abbreviated as MNAC, is a museum of Catalan visual art located in Barcelona, Catalonia. It is housed in the Palau Nacional, built for the 1929 World's Fair...
.
See also
- Thyssen
See also variant spellings including Thiessen.Thyssen may refer to:*The Thyssen family, which has many notable members descended from Friedrich Thyssen. They established steel works, elevators and escalators, industrial conglomerates, banks, and art collections - Thyssen AG, ThyssenKrupp and...
- Thyssen family
The Thyssen family has notable members who are descendants of Friedrich Thyssen and established steel works, elevators and escalators, industrial conglomerates, banks, and art collections - Thyssen AG, ThyssenKrupp and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. Originating from Germany, family members have...
- Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon
Heinrich Thyssen , since June 22, 1907 Heinrich Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva, was a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector.-Biography:...
- Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza
Hans Henrik Ágost Gábor Tasso Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva , a noted industrialist and art collector, was a Dutch-born Swiss citizen with a Hungarian title, a legal resident of Monaco for tax purposes, with a declared second residency in the United Kingdom, but in actuality...
External links