How big should an exhibition be? “Five Spanish Masterpieces” packs a mighty wallop, even though you can count the paintings on one hand.
The Detroit Institute of Arts’ great blue period Picasso, “Melancholy Woman,” has returned home after two years on loan to exhibitions across the globe. To celebrate, the DIA has surrounded it with dynamite paintings by El Greco, Velázquez, Goya and Salvador Dali.
Curated by Salvador Salort-Pons, head of European Art at the DIA, the exhibition is spread over three galleries — this is one show that’s not overhung — and sweeps through about 300 years of Spanish art.
Dali and Picasso get their own rooms. Dali style changed later in his career, but his gruesome antiwar picture, “Soft Construction with Boiled Beans” (1936), remains a surrealist landmark.
But it’s the center gallery that makes the show, with portraits of an unknown man by Velázquez and a matador by Goya, plus El Greco’s “The Holy Family with St. Anne and the Infant St. John the Baptist” (1600).
— Detroit Free Press
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