Engravings and Sketches Museum in Marbella

Facing us is a gothic-renaissance style observation tower, which once belonged to the Residential Palace of Alcaide Don Alonso de Bazán, who through his last will and testament, ordered its conversion into a hospital for the city´s poor.

At the present time the building still offers a valuable contribution to the city: it has benefited from an important renovation and transformation and since 1992 is home to the Museum of Spanish Contemporary Engravings as well as being the offices of the Marbella Culture Delegation.

The Museum, the first of its kind in Spain, contains works from Picasso, Miró, Tapies, Chillida and other famous painters. Special Engraving exhibitions and other artistic and musical activities are also held there.

The Spanish Museum of Contemporary Engravings, the first of its kind to appear our country and one of the few existent in europe, was born in November 1992, thanks to the donation from Dr. José Luis Morales y Marín, Professor of History of Art in the Autonomous University of Madrid, to the city of Marbella, his collection of engravings, composed of nearly two thousand works of art that this historian collected through the years. Later, this collection has grown thanks to various donations from artists, institutions and individuals, among them a sculpture, a unique piece by Eduardo Chillida, the only one exhibited in an andalusian museum.

Its establishment was made possible by the Foundation created by Professor Morales y Martín and the Marbella Town Hall. In its Board of Trustees we find a representation of several institutions like the University, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Superior College for Scientific Investigations , etc. The director is Professor Morales, aided by a scientific commitee composed of important spanish and foreign personalities, both from the History of Art and other fields of culture.

The Museum is situated in a monumental building dating back th XVI century, the old Bazán Hospital, in the city´s old quarter, which was restored by the Junta de Andalucía and reconditioned for its new function as museum with the most modern illumination systems by the Marbella Town Hall.

The exhibited collections, which are periodically renewed from the institution´s stores, offer a rich panorama of what engravings have meant to Spain during during the XX century, from the already distant historical avant-garde artists – Picasso, Miró or Dallí – to the representatives of the different movements and tendencies which have developed during the century. In this way, we find next to Palencia, Maruja Mallo or Alberti – founders of the Vallecas School – the whole Madrid School. And next to it, Tapies, Chillida, Antonio, Saura, Lucio Muñoz or testimonial artists of a given period like Genovés, Canogar or Equipo Crónica. Creators of a hispanic realism – Antonio López, Amalia Avia, Naranjo, or José Hernández -; constructive and cinetic – Sempere, Palazuelo, Caruncho, Gerardo Rueda, etc. – or artists as difficult to clasify like José Caballero or Antonio Clavé, until we reach art which appeared in the last few decades, with Gordillo, Alexanco, Barceló, Sicilia, Broto, Capa, Víctor Mira, Campano, etc.

And next to them, a complete selection of the first prizes in the now inexistent Exposiciones Nacionales de Bellas Artes, in its engravings section, from Ricardo Baroja to Castro Gil, including Luis García Ochoa.