An introduction to 'Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light'

This is the first major exhibition of Sorolla's paintings in the United Kingdom since 1908, when there was a very large exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in London. Our exhibition presents some 70 of the artist's most important paintings, stretching from the works on social themes that he executed in the 1890s and that he then sent around the world to establish his fame. It also includes his portraits, very many of them very deeply embedded in the Spanish tradition of Velazquez and Goya. It includes his most famous works set on the beach at Valencia, up and down the Spanish coast, scenes of joyful play and of labor by the sea, works that established his international fame. And it includes as well studies for his great cycle, The Vision of Spain, painted for the Hispanic Society in New York, an encyclopedic image of Spain on the edge of the modern world. It ends with some of his great landscapes and large-scale images, very audacious compositions showing family and friends enjoying themselves in nature. The joyfulness of Sorolla's paintings is also something that again is attracting attention. The skill with which he captured nature and the sheer pleasure that that capturing of nature gives to people when they view it beyond theory, beyond the art market in a certain sense, seems wonderfully direct and immediate. One of the things we hope the exhibition shows is Sorolla's extraordinary technical virtuosity, the way in which he could bring technique to bear on capturing the most fleeting effects of sunlight. He is the master of sunlight, he was recognized as such around the world in his own lifetime and now again we get to celebrate that unique skill.