Overlooked in New York, Artwork Is a Draw in Spain
MADRID — The treasures of the Hispanic Society of America — works by Goya, Velázquez and El Greco, among other masters — are not a popular draw at the group’s Beaux-Arts museum in New York.
But through September 10, the haughty portrait of the Duchess of Alba by Goya, from 1797, and 200 other works from the century- old Hispanic Society are getting recognition from thousands of visitors to the Prado Museum here — along with royal accolades and an international prize.
For more than a century, the Hispanic Society’s landmark museum and library in Manhattan has offered free entrance. But it has struggled to draw crowds.
That changed with the Madrid exhibition, “Treasures From the Hispanic Society of America,” which has already attracted more than 150,000 spectators since April 4, and is expected to draw about 400,000 before it ends.
Among the first to pay tribute were the former King Juan Carlos and his wife, Sofía. Their appearance marked the royal recognition of the society, which has the largest collection of Spanish art and manuscripts outside Spain. In May, the New York museum received the Princess of Asturias award for international cooperation — a Spanish prize ordinarily reserved for high-profile institutions like the International Red Cross.
The newfound attention is all
Royal accolades for a collection that spans 4,000 years.
rather dizzying for an institution that just five years ago, raised money by auctioning off a gold coin collection and exhibited paintings that sometimes outnumbered visitors on the hot days without air- conditioning.
The society is determined to exploit the traveling exhibition to raise its own profile, along with a $16 million makeover of its New York building under the guidance of Philippe de Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and chairman of the society’s board of trustees. He is leading the drive to renovate the museum and also to give it an international footprint by expanding its five-member board to 20, with new trustees from Mexico and Europe. In January, the society closed the building for two years of renovations.
“We get about 25,000 people a year now, and that’s ridiculous,” Mr. de Montebello said. “We should be getting 100,000.”
Madrid got the first look at silks and religious robes that have rarely surfaced in the New York museum, because of lighting issues. The Madrid museum is paying for the shipping expenses and exhibition costs.
The story of the collection centers on Archer Milton Huntington, a philanthropist and stepson of a wealthy 19th- century railroad magnate, Collis P. Huntington. As a boy, Archer became fascinated with Spain and amassed a collection of 18,000 works with the ambition to “make a poem of a museum.” In 1904, Huntington founded the Hispanic Society museum and reference library.
Mitchell Codding, head of the society, said in Madrid the museum can finally show off the breadth of Huntington’s collection, which spans 4,000 years.
“When some of the society employees saw the exhibition for the first time, some of them started to cry,” said Miguel Falomir, the director of the Prado. “They felt such emotion to see their objects on display in a way they had never seen before.”