Mediterranean Light Wraps His Daughter, Later Shines Across the Atlantic
Creatrip Team
6 months ago
Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla, dubbed the “Master of Light,” painted his ill daughter Maria in a sunlit white dress at the royal grounds of La Granja in 1907. That painting, La Granja’s Maria, helped introduce Sorolla’s Mediterranean light to the United States when collector Archer Huntington purchased it after Sorolla’s landmark 1909 exhibition at the Hispanic Society of America (HSA) in New York. Huntington later donated the work to the San Diego Museum of Art, making it the museum’s first permanent acquisition. The HSA show—featuring some 350 works and drawing a record crowd—sparked strong U.S. interest, leading to many sales and further exhibitions. Backed by Huntington, Sorolla embarked on a major project from 1913 that documented Spanish regional costumes and customs, producing the vast, multi-panel ‘‘Vision of Spain’’ (about 70 meters long). (La Granja: a royal site in Segovia)
