Sorolla and Summer

The paintings of beach scenes are probably the best-known part of Joaquín Sorolla’s oeuvre (1863-1923). Always executed from life (for the painter, summer was in fact his busiest period), it was these works that brought him the greatest success in his national and international exhibitions.

Although his early scenes focus on the tasks of coastal labor and emphasize the sea as a means of life, it is above all the representations of summer recreation on the beach with which his work is most closely associated. In addition to his pictorial mastery, these paintings also offer an interesting insight into the evolution of the marine environment in relation to the therapeutic properties of bathing and the emergence of summer as a period of leisure and conviviality.

Through a carefully chosen selection of 40 works, half of them small-format, Sorolla and Summer brings us closer to the impact that these new ideas about the sea had on the work and personal life of the great Valencian master. In this sense, the exhibition covers both the scenes of the Mediterranean coast, in which the recreational aspect of the enjoyment of the sea predominates, and those set on the Cantabrian coast, which capture the atmosphere of the upper-class summer visitors of San Sebastián, Zarauz and Biarritz.

Curator: Casilda Ybarra Satrústegui (Fundación MAPFRE).

Exhibition organised by Fundación MAPFRE within the programme to mark the centenary of the death of Joaquín Sorolla, in collabaoration with the Museo Sorolla and the Fundación Museo Sorolla.