Madrid & Central Spain - Discover Spain: Experience the Best of Spain - page 332

Huertas & Atocha

CENTRO DE ARTE REINA SOFÍA
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Art Gallery

( www.museoreinasofia.es ; Calle de Santa Isabel 52; adult/student, under 18yr & over
65yr €6/free, free to all Sun, 7-9pm Mon & Wed-Fri, 2.30-9pm Sat, audioguide adult/
student €4/3; 10am-9pm Mon & Wed-Sat, 10am-2.30pm Sun; Atocha)
Home to Picasso's Guernica, arguably Spain's single-most-famous artwork, and a
host of other important Spanish artists, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is Madrid's
premier collection of contemporary art. The collection principally spans the 20th
century up to the 1980s (for more recent works, visit the Museo Municipal de Arte
Contemporáneo; Click here ).
In addition to Picasso's Guernica, which is worth the admission fee on its own,
don't neglect the artist's preparatory sketches in the rooms surrounding Room 206.
The work of Joan Miró (1893-1983) is defined by often delightfully bright primary
colours, but watch out also for a handful of his equally odd sculptures.
The Reina Sofía is also home to 20 or so canvases by Salvador Dalí, of which
the most famous is perhaps the surrealist extravaganza that is El Gran Masturbador
(1929).
If you can tear yourself away from the big names, the Reina Sofía offers a terrific
opportunity to learn more about sometimes lesser-known 20th-century Spanish
artists. Among these are: Miquel Barceló (b 1957); madrileño artist José Gutiérrez
Solana (1886-1945); the renowned Basque painter Ignazio Zuloaga (1870-1945);
Benjamin Palencia (1894-1980), whose paintings capture the turbulence of Spain
in the 1930s; Barcelona painter Antoni Tàpies (b 1923); the pop art of Eduardo Ar-
royo (b 1937); and abstract painters such as Eusebio Sempere (1923-85) and
members of the Equipo 57 group (founded in 1957 by a group of Spanish artists in
exile in Paris), such as Pablo Palazuelo (1916-2007).