Posing at the Prado, Madrid
Ooh – just was looking through my pictures from last June looking for something else and came across this. It’s me next to a bronze statue of a painter by I forget what artist outside the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
I turned forty last February and sometime around my birthday I got a phone call. It was my dad. “How’d you like to go to Spain?” he asked.
Would I ever. So last June we packed our bags and headed to Madrid. I lost no time dragging him to the Prado, where by pure good fortune they had an incredible exhibit of paintings by Joachin Sorollo – a contemporary of Sargent and an amazing painter! The collection of Velazquez paintings was truly to die for, too. My favorite was Los Borrachos (The Drunks) – what a study in character!
Los Borrachos, Diego Velazquez, 1629
We also spent a day in Toledo and saw Gaudi’s fabulous Sagrada Familia cathedral and the Picasso Museum in Barcelona.
I didn’t have much time to paint, but it didn’t matter – it was a feast for the eyes!
(The food was great, too!)