The Young Murillo

Curated by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez and Benito Navarrete, the exhibition will include fifty or so works by the young Murillo (Seville, 1617-82) from a crucial period in his career, one represented—through some particularly fine works—in the collections of both Bilbao and Seville Fine Arts Museums: St. Peter Weeping (c.1650-55) and St. Lesmes (c. 1655) in Bilbao, and St Francis (c.1645-50) and San Jerome (c. 1665-75) in Seville.

Around 1640 Murillo achieved his first artistic successes, launching a career in the ascendant. During this early period Murillo produced an oeuvre marked by a taste for tenebrism and naturalism, a reflection of the durable influence of masters from the previous generation, like Zurbarán and Ribera, particularly in the way he plays with the light and dark and his close observation of his subject.