To mark the Masaveu Collection. 20th Century Spanish Art. From Picasso to Barceló exhibition, the María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation will present an exhibition from 19 February to 19 July made up of a selection of photographs from its artistic collection, taken between the 1930s and the dawn of the 21st century.
The images on display were taken by different generations of artists with extremely diverse sensitivities and purposes. The oldest ones, by Antonio Arissa and José Alemany, date back to 1932 and 1938 respectively, whilst the more recent ones were taken by Eva Lootz, Alberto García-Alix, Evaristo Delgado and José María Díaz-Maroto.
In this timeline, there are photographs by Manuel Sonseca, Ángel Sanz, Jesús Angulo and Ramón Masats. They address issues such as the world of work - from the petrol station to the artist’s studio in scenes that portray leisure time as well as physical activity -, poetic visions of a fragmented landscape that is inhabited at times, and a close, almost tactile visual relation with objects and parts of the body that claim a powerful presence.
Some of these photographs capture scenes that are capable of summarising a single moment in the life of a country. This is the case of Petrol Station. Soria, by José María Díaz-Maroto, or Venta La Romera, by Manuel Sonseca. This is particularly evident in the well-known photograph, Seminario, Madrid by Ramón Masats, which portrays Spain in the early 1960s when it was considered to be developing, and in which football and religion, urban growth and wasteland were mixed together as ever-present realities.
Due to its exceptional quality, the 1940 photograph, Flores-Ramos Mejía, by Horacio Coppola from Buenos Aires has been added to them.
Image Credit:
- Ramón Masats, Seminario, Madrid, 1960. María Cristina Masaveu Petterson Foundation’s Collection © Ramón Masats, VEGAP, Madrid, 2026
