Spain and the Hispanic World: an expansive and eccentric exhibition

Royal Academy show captures ‘the folkloric Spain of peasants and bullfighters’

Sorolla’s The Provinces of Spain: Castile (1912-13)
Sorolla’s The Provinces of Spain: Castile (1912-13): ‘bursting with colour’
(Image credit: The Hispanic Society of America)

In 1882, Archer M. Huntington, the son of an American railroad tycoon, made his first visit to Europe and found a book about Spanish gypsies in a Liverpool bookshop, said Adrian Searle in The Guardian. “Spain must be much more interesting than Liverpool,” he wrote in his diary.

It was the beginning of a lifelong passion, which saw Huntingdon amass the most comprehensive collection of Spanish and Hispanic art outside of Spain. In 1908, he opened the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York to display his treasures.

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