Barón gave a lecture yesterday afternoon in which he exhaustively reviewed each of the pieces recently incorporated into the Fine Arts collections and highlighted, above all, the boost that the section dedicated to contemporary art receives.
Barón is the author of some of the chapters in the catalog that covers the donation of Arango, which was published in 2018 on the occasion of the first exhibition of the works and which is still available in the Museum store. Yesterday, before delving into its content, he dedicated words of appreciation to the benefactor of the Asturian Museum and the Prado, to which the Arango also made an important contribution. “It could not be missed this time,” he said, referring to the difficulties of traveling amid the coronavirus epidemic. Yesterday’s event, in his view, was “a kind of tribute to Plácido Arango, a generous patron in a country where there is not – and it does not seem that it will enact – a patronage law.” “His collection is a universal reference among private collections”, Javier Barón acknowledged, and is characterized by “quality and exquisiteness”.
Barón also alluded to the close friendship of Plácido Arango with Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, director of the Prado and that he was “an ally, in the civic task of recovering the heritage” in which both were embarked. On several occasions, Barón said, works that the Prado did not acquire were rescued for the Spanish heritage by Arango, thanks to the complicity between the two.
Javier Barón referred to the Asturian feeling of the collector, who had Spanish nationality despite being born in Mexico, and who made the donation to the Fine Arts of Asturias in memory of his parents. “He felt Asturian, and this was a way of connecting with Asturias,” he commented. His love for the region was already evident in his eight years as president of the Prince of Asturias Foundation and with the exhibition “A singular look”, in 2006 at the Bellas Artes, with 25 pictorial works from his collection.
Plácido Arango’s donation, “a historic event” for the Fine Arts, as recognized yesterday by its director, Alfonso Palacio, was formalized in 2017 and was presented, in full, in a 2018 exhibition. The one that can now be visited at the Palacio de Velarde is its reissue. It consists, as Javier Barón listed, of 33 works, 30 artists, of which 18 make their debut at the Museum and another four are represented by works assigned. All of Arango’s legacy, paintings and sculptures, will be incorporated into the permanent exhibition. “I wanted to donate quality works and room works,” said Javier Barón.
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