Collection: Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 1820–1920

Milwaukee Art Museum

June 11–October 3, 2021

Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 1820–1920 is the first major exhibition to focus on the influence of Spanish art and culture on American painting. During the nineteenth century, artists increasingly added Spain to their European tours to study the masterworks in the Prado Museum and to capture the country’s scenic charms and customs. The exhibition features artists and movements that expand upon areas of particular strength in the Museum’s collection, including artists of the Ashcan Circle and the Eight, as well as major canvases by Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and John Singer Sargent. Also among the highlights are Sargent’s famous Carmencita (1890) from the Musée d’Orsay; a newly discovered painting by Mary Cassatt from a Madrid private collection never before shown in the United States; and Spanish old masters on loan from the Prado Museum that American painters copied.

The exhibition’s more than 100 paintings, photographs, and prints are presented chronologically and organized to emphasize migration, tourism, and travel in nineteenth-century Spain. Additional themes include the romance and the reality of old Spain; Spanish old masters and American copyists at the Prado Museum; Spanish architecture, gardens, and landscapes; Spain’s Islamic history; and the critical and popular responses to American artists’ work.