Zuloaga and Picasso
This section reveals the esteem in which El Greco was held by Spanish artists from
the 1890s onwards, particularly by the Basque painter Zuloaga. In My Friends, Zuloaga
portrayed a group of Spanish writers who appreciated El Greco’s work, depicted
below that artist’s Vision of Saint John, a work that Zuloaga himself owned (now in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Zuloaga also painted Maurice Barrès, the
author of the influential book El Greco or the Secret of Toledo, of which a copy is
displayed in the exhibition alongside the portrait.
Also to be seen in this section are two portraits by Sorolla of two figures who were
among the most important champions of El Greco: the Marquis of Vega Inclán,
founder of the Casa Museo del Greco, and Manuel Bartolomé Cossío, author of the
first major monograph on the artist, of which a copy is displayed here.
Rusiñol was another key figure in the rediscovery of El Greco, as evident in his friend
Ramón Pichot’s portrait of him. Pichot depicts Rusiñol in the pose of the portrait by
El Greco that most influenced modern painters, namely Man with his Hand on his Breast.