Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain. Newmexico.org

The New Mexico Museum of Art is the only American venue for the exhibition Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings from Spain that is literally rewriting the book on Spanish art. After the British Museum in London, the Prado in Madrid and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia the exhibition opens December 14, 2013 in Santa Fe and runs through March 9, 2014.

It was long assumed that, uniquely among their contemporaries in other countries, Spanish artists did not draw and produced little in printmaking. That misconception has been shattered by Mark McDonald, Curator at the British Museum, who has trawled the depths of that institution's great reserves of graphic art.

In 132 drawings and prints, many of which have never been on display before, visitors are offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gain insight into four centuries of Spain's visual culture and history. Among the artists included are Velazquez, Murillo, Zurbáran, Ribera and above all Goya whose full range is represented in 26 works. As one London reviewer pointed out, "All the great themes of Iberian culture are here: religious fervor, dramatic passion bordering on violence and, of course bullfighting".