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Abstract
Established in the mid-1950s, the Fundación Juan March provided an important space for exhibiting the art of the European avant-garde and, from 1977 onwards, modern art from North America. It is argued that the foundation played an important role in presenting American art exhibitions to Spanish audiences in the post-Franco years and at the end of the Cold War. The shows were organized in partnership with high-profile US institutions, dealers, the artists’ estates and/or the artists themselves. In addition to thematic shows, the foundation hosted solo exhibitions in the 1970s and 1980s, dedicated to de Kooning, Motherwell, Lichtenstein, Cornell, Rauschenberg, Rothko, Hopper, and Warhol.
Notes
1 Letter from José Capa to Steven Nasch on 12 May 1988 requesting the loan of Edward Hopper’s Lighthouse Hill, 1927, part of the collection held at the Dallas Museum of Art. Archivo Fundación Juan March, Madrid (AFJM).
2 In the 1980s, Fundación “la Caixa” held various exhibitions in Madrid, including Pintura norteamericana: los ochenta (1982), El arte y su doble: una perspectiva de Nueva York (1987), along with exhibitions dedicated to David Salle (1988) and Arshile Gorky (1989).
3 The exhibition brought together works by eighteen artists who had built their careers in the United States: Josef Albers—who, as an emigrant himself, was crucial for the new generation of North American painters—, Alexander Calder, Sam Francis, Jasper Johns, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Jules Olitski, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Frank Stella, Mark Tobey, and Andy Warhol.
4 In 1978 the Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo organized an exhibition which we must mention here: Arte americano: Museo de Arte Moderno de Nueva York en el Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo. The show, which featured 270 works of painting, sculpture, drawing, graphic art, photography, poster design and cinema, was a traveling exhibition intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the New York museum.
5 Letter from José Luis Yuste, director of the Fundación Juan March, to Harold Rosenberg on 2 February 1977, Madrid. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
6 Lecture by Fernando Zóbel entitled “El expresionismo abstracto del arte estadounidense actual” [The Abstract Expressionism of Present-day American Art], Arte USA, 9 February 1977: https://canal.march.es/es/coleccion/expresionismo-abstracto-arte-estadounidense-actual-19059
7 Letter from art dealer Xavier Fourcade to José Luis Yuste on 22 November, 1978, New York. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
8 Letter from José Guerrero to the Director of Cultural Activities, Andrés Amorós, on 28 January, 1979, New York. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
9 When the de Kooning exhibition came to a close, José Luis Yuste explained to the then US Ambassador in Madrid, Terence A. Todman, that the foundation was hoping “to be able to host a monographic exhibition of another great North American artist, probably Lichtenstein” in 1980. Although the exhibition did not take place until three years later, his comment shows that the intention was already there. Letter from José Luis Yuste to Terence A. Todman on 15 March, 1979, Madrid. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
10 José Guerrero sent another letter to José Capa the same day he wrote Andrés Amorós informing him about his meeting with De Kooning. In his letter to Capa, Guerrero raised the possibility of an exhibition on Motherwell in Madrid, making sure to point out the artist’s links with Spain: “As you know, his interest in Spain began more than thirty years ago. His themes have always alluded to Spain, especially the series entitled Opening. Iberia, Madrid Suite, which he painted there, and his most persistent theme, Spanish Elegy.” Letter from José Guerrero to José Capa on 28 January, 1979, New York. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
11 In a letter addressed to Andrés Amorós, Motherwell writes: “After all, I regard Joan Miró as the greatest living painter; and Antonio Tapies is my favorite post-World War II European painter; I would not wish to give you an exhibition that those two great artists would not admire.” Letter from Robert Motherwell to Andrés Amorós on 1 June, 1979, Greenwich, Connecticut. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
12 Letter from Robert Motherwell to Andrés Amorós on 4 October 1979, Greenwich. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
13 In October 1978, with the writer and journalist Barbara Probst Solomon acting as an intermediary, Robert Motherwell donated two artworks to the universities of Salamanca and Coimbra to celebrate the restoration of democracy on the Iberian Peninsula.
14 Letter from Robert Motherwell to José Luis Yuste on 1 May 1980, Greenwich. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
15 Letter from Frances Beatty, vice president of Richard L. Feigen & Co., to José Luis Yuste on 23 April 1984, New York. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
16 Conversation with José Capa in Madrid on 6 October, 2022.
17 Letter from José Luis Yuste to Robert Rauschenberg on 15 March, 1985, Madrid. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
18 Letter from José Luis Yuste to Robert Motherwell on 27 November 1980, Madrid. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
19 Letter from Bonnie Clearwater, curator of the Mark Rothko Foundation, to José Luis Yuste on 16 November, 1982, New York. Archivo Fundación Juan March (AFJM).
20 The inaugural speech was given by Tate curator Michael Compton, and the foundation also organized four keynote speeches on the artist, by Jack Cowart and historian and art critic Ángel González.
21 Many of the exhibitions mentioned above—both solo and group shows—were also held at a second venue in Barcelona to allow them to reach larger audiences. These included the Fundació Joan Miró, the Centro Cultural “la Caixa”, the Atarazanas, the Palau de la Virreina and the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera.
22 The show featured works by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Robert Morris, and Robert Ryman.
23 These included North American artists such as Andre, Judd, LeWitt, Lichtenstein, Morris, Noland and Warhol.
24 Castelli had opened his first gallery in Paris in the 1930s but subsequently moved to the US following the outbreak of World War II. In 1951 he helped to organize the Ninth Street Show, an exhibition assembled by members of the artist organization known as “The Club.” He opened his new gallery in New York six years later, using this as a platform to support the North American artists of the moment. It was not easy to make this exhibition a reality. José Capa had been suggesting the possibility of organizing it for years, but the art dealer’s second wife, Antoinette Fraissex du Bost, was not keen on the idea. When she died in 1987, Castelli called Capa up and told him: “I can let you have the collection now; my wife has died.” Conversation with José Capa in Madrid, 6 October, 2022.
25 Juan Manuel Bonet: “Parte sustancial de nuestra educación artística,” in Celebración del arte. Medio siglo de la Fundación Juan March (Madrid, Fundación Juan March, 2005), 175.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Inés Vallejo Ulecia
Translated by Isabel Adey