MUSEO CARMEN THYSSEN MALAGA, UNIQUE IN THE WORLD WITH A FEMALE NAME

Carmen Thyssen Museum was opened on March 24th in Malaga city (in Andalucia region), which houses 230 paintings by great Spanish painters, especially Andalusian painters from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Baroness Thyssen (widowed to Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza)  has given the paintings free of charge, for a period of 15 years.

These works have been bought by herself at different auctions in New York, London and other big cities and she has said that she has chosen them for this museum because of their beauty and quality. Each painting has a story and reflects on what she felt the first time she saw them. She admits that it was too selfish to keep them only to be admired by herself.

This museum is the only one in the world dedicated to the great Spanish painters from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, among them: Sorolla, Zuloaga, Madrazo, Regoyos, Julio Romero de Torres, Fortuny, Moreno Carboneras, Canals, Casas, Iturrino, Lopez Mezquita, Urgell, Degrain, Meifren, Gomez Gil and others. And the styles range from paintings of old masters to Romantic painting, manners, natural and modern.

Also the Baroness is proud because this is the only museum in the world with a woman's name, and also a typical Spanish name such as Carmen.

The Museum is housed in a beautiful building, the Palacio de Villalón and has an area of 5,185 meters square, which will be divided into four floors, three for the permanent exhibition and one for temporary exhibitions. These exhibitions will be held three times a year and will start next April with one about Picasso.

The opening of this museum comes after she and the Baron Thyssen opened in 1992, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, a wide selection of the private collection of this family, over 7 decades and ranging from the Gothic-style until the eighthies, which together with the Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofia Museum, makes the so-called Golden Triangle in Madrid.

After this new museum in Malaga, the Baroness has still one more dream to fulfill and it is to open the Museum of San Feliu de Guixols (Gerona), where Baroness lives (she was born in Barcelona), which mainly will be dedicated to Catalan painters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

These are some of the paintings which could be seen in this Museum:

"Julia" by Ramón Casas,

Carmen Cervera especially loves this painting

because the woman painted in it

(who was, by the way, the painter's girlfriend)

recalls her as her own mother

"Rocas de Javea y el bote blanco" by Joaquin Sorolla

"La buenaventura" by Julio Romero de Torres

Ricard Canals

"Santa Marina" by Francisco de Zurbarán

"Corrida de toros en Eibar" by Ignacio Zuloaga

And this is the Museum link website (clicking on the name): Museo Carmen Thyssen Malaga.

Of course, the opening of this new museum in Malaga (where Picasso and actor Antonio Banderas were born, by the way) will be a good reason else to visit the beautiful city of Malaga, where I spent a short holidays a few years ago and would not mind returning again, even to visit this new Museum!

Sources:  photographs and information were taken from the internet and Hello magazine.