Louvre, National Gallery London, Art Institute of Chicago Join for Major Zurbarán Retrospective
The Facts
The Musée du Louvre in Paris is organizing a major retrospective of Spanish Baroque painter Francisco de Zurbarán, running from October 7, 2026 to January 25, 2027. The exhibition is co-organized with the National Gallery, London, and the Art Institute of Chicago, marking the first large-scale international presentation focused on Zurbarán since the 1987–1988 joint exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Grand Palais. The show presents an ambitious selection of the finest works by Zurbarán, who alongside Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo is considered one of the greatest Spanish painters of the 17th century. It is structured into seven chronological and thematic sections, with emphasis on monumental monastic commissions, portraits, still lifes, and a special section on the brief career of his son Juan de Zurbarán (1620–1649).
The Signal
The exhibition will be presented simultaneously with 'Sculpting Colour' in the same space, featuring collaborative scenography to foster a comparative look at 17th-century Spanish arts. A free mobile app with audio guides is available. The exhibition is sponsored by Deloitte as principal patron, with support from the International Council of the Louvre and American Friends of the Louvre. The collaboration signals a renewed institutional commitment to re-evaluating Zurbarán’s modernist legacy, highlighted by a section tracing his influence on later French avant-garde artists such as Édouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Juan Gris. For collectors, this retrospective offers a rare opportunity to see major loans from three leading international collections, likely to reassess the market for Zurbarán's works, which have seen sporadic but strong auction performances.
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- Artists: Francisco de Zurbarán, Diego Velázquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Juan de Zurbarán, Édouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris
- People: Charlotte Chastel-Rousseau, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, Daniel Sobrino Ralston, Rebecca Long
- Museums: Musée du Louvre, National Gallery, London, Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Palais
- Locations: Paris, London, Chicago
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