The Sorolla Museum, a state museum of the Ministry of Culture, has beaten its historic record of visitors with more than 345,000 visits in 2023, 40% more than in 2022.

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Sorolla Centenary

The Sorolla Centenary makes a positive balance. A total of 1.5 million people have visited the 38 exhibitions included in the programme ‘100 years since the death of Joaquín Sorolla’. The plan of national and international activities, approved by the National Commission for the commemoration, has been coordinated by the Sorolla Museum – a state museum dependent on the Ministry of Culture – and the Sorolla Museum Foundation.

In fact, in recognition of the close collaboration of the Sorolla Museum Foundation in the exhibition, educational and research programmes of the Sorolla Museum, as well as its essential role in the celebration of Sorolla Year, the last Council of Ministers approved the awarding of the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts 2023 to the Sorolla Museum Foundation. This is the highest recognition awarded in Spain to individuals and entities that have excelled in the field of artistic and cultural creation or have provided outstanding services in the promotion, development or dissemination of art and culture or the conservation of artistic heritage.

Record number of visitors
During the Sorolla Year, the Sorolla Museum surpassed the historical figure of visitors in 2023, with 345,000 people counted up to 31 December. This figure represents a 40% increase in visitors compared to the previous year. Between January and December, the exhibition programme offered exhibitions that explored lesser-known aspects of the artist, such as his artistic beginnings with ‘Sorolla. Origins’, to his last years with ‘Sorolla is dead! Long live Sorolla’; a novel literary curatorship through ‘In the Sea of Sorolla with Manuel Vicent’ or the recent study on his passionate journey as a ‘plagiarist’ painter with ‘Sorolla travelling to paint. Another vision of Spain’, extended until April 2024.

A celebration of the territory
This last exhibition is the central theme of the project that will provide the territorial backbone of the centenary. Sorolla, travelling to paint’ is an initiative promoted by the Sorolla Museum and the Sorolla Museum Foundation that takes Sorolla’s work to the places where it was painted in life through cabinet exhibitions. Travelling to paint. Sorolla in San Sebastián’, held at the San Telmo Museum; ‘Travelling to paint, Sorolla in Toledo’, presented at the El Greco Museum; and ‘Travelling to paint, Sorolla in A Coruña’, inaugurated at the Museum of Fine Arts of A Coruña, have been part of this project.

Madrid has hosted part of the programme with exhibitions such as the one held at the Royal Palace, ‘Sorolla through light’, visited by 180,000 people. Likewise, different institutions have carried out projects to make their own collections of the author visible, such as the Congress of Deputies, with its tribute exhibition to Sorolla; or the Museo Nacional del Prado, with the exhibition ‘Portraits of Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923)’. In addition, Fundación MAPFRE has also joined the centenary with the exhibition ‘Sorolla’s summers’.

In turn, Valencia, the painter’s birthplace, has hosted a large number of exhibitions as part of the centenary, such as those held at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia: ‘Sorolla. Origins and the Masaveu Collection. Sorolla’, which received more than 121,000 visitors. For its part, the Bancaja Foundation in Valencia hosted the exhibitions ‘Sorolla in black’, with more than 60,000 visitors, and ‘Sorolla through light’, which is still in progress. Throughout the commemoration, different institutions have explored the bond between a young Sorolla and his city, such as the Diputación de Valencia, with the exhibition ‘Sorolla en Roma. The artist and the pension of the Diputación de Valencia (1884- 1889)’ at the Palacio de Batlia; or the Museo de la Ciudad de Valencia with the ‘City of artists. Joaquín Sorolla and the Palace of Arts and Industries of Valencia’. Finally, the Benlliure House Museum has inaugurated the exhibition ‘The Valencia of Joaquín Sorolla’, which can be visited until 3 February.

On a national level, the cities of Alicante, Oviedo, Avilés and Bilbao have joined in the celebration of this event. Examples of this are the exhibitions: ‘Sorolla and Valencian painting of his time. Dialogues and contrasts’ at the MUBAG in Alicante; ‘Brushes full of sun. Sorolla’s collection’ at the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias; and ‘Sorolla: portraits in the Pérez Simón collection’, at the Casa de Cultura in Avilés. For its part, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum inaugurated a group of invited works by the master; and the Círculo Caja de Burgos hosted the travelling exhibition ‘Sorolla. Dibujante sin descanso’ (Sorolla. A Restless Draughtsman).