The Sorolla Museum and the Sorolla Museum Foundation are presenting this exhibition from 24 January to 25 June in which Joaquín Sorolla’s life journey is analysed through the last three years of his life and the enormous repercussion of his death is brought to light, both in the world of culture at that time and at a social level, along with the tributes that have been made to the painter over the years. 

As part of the celebrations to mark the first centenary of the painter’s death, the exhibition, which can be seen in Hall I at the museum, has been organised into four sections through a careful documentation selection, almost all of which has never been seen before: A Fine Warm Morning, The Light that Goes Out, Sorolla is Dead! Long live Sorolla! and The Immortal Painter. In each section, a selection of documentation collections is on display in a variety of formats from the Museum’s Archive: old photographs, correspondence, press releases of that time, etc.

Along with this selection of documents, the Portrait of Mabel Rick, Mrs. Pérez de Ayala is on display, Sorolla’s last painting, which was unfinished after suffering a stroke whilst painting it, leading him to never paint again. This painting is joined by two sculptures, one of which has never been seen before: the funerary mask that the sculptor, Mariano Benlliure, made on his deathbed and the painter’s hand, sculpted by Ricardo Causarás. 

An original scientific publication in the form of a newspaper of that time rounds off the exhibition. It brings together a selection of articles on Sorolla published in the press between 1920 and 1933 and a series of brief essays written by the curators, who contextualise and clarify what happened.

This final stage in Sorolla’s life is the least known by the public, when he decided to give up painting due to illness. On his death, there were numerous tributes and recognitions that serve as proof of the national and international importance, appreciation and recognition that he had achieved throughout his life.

Image Credits:

• Diego González Ragel, Joaquín Sorolla Bastida, 22 March 1917. MS 86494
• Alfonso [Alfonso Sánchez Portela], Sorolla’s Deathbed, 11 August 1923. MS, n.º inv. 807[186460]
• Campúa [José Demaría López] (attributed to), Unveiling of the monument to Sorolla in Seville, 26 Oct [186457]
• Joaquín Sorolla Bastida, Portrait of Mabel Rick, Mrs. Pérez de Ayala, 1920. MS, n.º inv 1276 [186454]
• Anonymous, Clotilde, widow with her son, ca. 1923. Sorolla Museum, n.º inv. 85610 [186459]