• The heirs of Jaime Botín, as per the wishes of the patron of Fundación Botín until his passing, have deposited new works at Centro Botín, resulting in a new permanent exhibition hall that gathers seventeen works from his collection.
• ‘Point and Counterpoint: 20th Century Masters in the Jaime Botín Collection’ is the title of the exhibition featuring 20th-century masterpieces that will be on permanent display at the Fundación Botín art centre in Santander starting tomorrow, Friday 27 June.
• The selection includes works by important Spanish artists such as María Blanchard, Pancho Cossío, Juan Gris, José Gutiérrez Solana, Manolo Millares, Joan Miró, Isidre Nonell, Pablo Palazuelo, Joaquín Sorolla, Antoni Tàpies and Daniel Vázquez Díaz, alongside some of the most significant international artists of the 20th century, such as Francis Bacon, Henri Matisse and Mark Rothko.
• María José Salazar, member at the Art Advisory Committee of Fundación Botín, and expert in 20th-century art, is curator of this exhibition, as she was for Portraits: Essence and Expression, which opened in 2018.

Tomorrow, on the first floor of Centro Botín, ‘Point and Counterpoint: 20th Century Masters in the Jaime Botín Collection’, will open its doors to the public. The exhibition presents a selection of 17 works from the personal collection of Jaime Botín, which his heirs have generously bequeathed to Centro Botín for permanent display. The exhibition brings together 14 important 20th-century artists with ‘works of very different styles which, despite varying greatly from one another, establish their unity in a splendid visual dialogue, where the contrasts of tones, textures and styles express deep emotions, which, despite their aesthetic and conceptual differences, achieve a unity that connects with the viewer,’ says María José Salazar, curator of the exhibition.

A member at the Art Advisory Committee at Fundación Botín, and an expert in 20th-century art, Salazar worked closely with Jaime Botín to curate the exhibition Portraits: Essence and Expression, which gathered the set of works deposited by the banker in 2018. Once more, she has been entrusted with organising this new space, which highlights similar points of connection between the works but also, like a silent melody, counterpoints between artists and styles that coexist in harmony. ‘A serene unity emerges, despite their belonging to two important moments in art history: the avant-garde period and post-war art, the years following the Second World War, in which new modes of representation emerged,’ she notes.

As such, the new permanent exhibition includes works by important Spanish artists such as Manolo Millares, Pablo Palazuelo and Antoni Tàpies, which lean towards abstraction, be it material, expressionist, or geometric, in a contrasting dialogue with the luminism of Joaquín Sorolla, the cubism of María Blanchard and Juan Gris, the poetic painting of Joan Miró, the lyrical figuration of Pancho Cossio, the realism of José Gutiérrez Solana, the Noucentisme of Isidre Nonell and the neo-cubism of Daniel Vázquez Díaz. These artists share the space with some of the most significant international artists of the 20th century who represent new figuration, Francis Bacon; fauvism, Henri Matisse; and expressionism, Mark Rothko.

Each artist represented here has managed to innovate, personalise and develop an identifying language, all of them with their own voice. There is a strong aesthetic personality, harmony and cohesion in the works, which demonstrates the individual participation of the artists in a collective and evolving process of art history.

About Jaime Botín and the new collection of works

Jaime Botín Sanz de Sautuola y García de los Ríos (1936-2024) was a member of the Fundación Botín Governing Board since its creation in 1965, and vice president of its board of trustees since it was established in 1996.

First as CEO and later as president of Bankinter, Jaime Botín was a key figure in the recent history of Spanish banking. Beyond that, however, he was an enlightened man: cultured, open-minded, ahead of his time and, above all, someone with intellectual honesty and a critical yet constructive view of reality, which gave him unique insight and made him a natural leader. That outlook and critical spirit are essential to understanding the significance of his contribution to the history of Fundación Botín, from its founding in 1964 until his death.

The works in this room, first deposited by him in 2018 and then by his heirs in 2024, are the best testimony and the finest example of that contribution, as well as of his social and philanthropic commitment.

Thanks to their generosity, the exploration of 20th-century art history provided by the collection presents essential figures of modern and contemporary art, tracing a map of styles, sensibilities and aesthetic shifts through renowned national and international artists. It explores deeply personal and, in many cases, revolutionary languages, blending avant-garde, lyricism, matter and emotion, in turn shaping a diverse, intense and deeply human artistic landscape. These creations not only dialogue with their time, but continue to interrogate the present.

Exhibition route

We begin this journey in alphabetical order with one of the greatest painters of the 20th century, Francis Bacon (Dublin, 1909 – Madrid, 1992), universally recognised for his disturbing style, which is difficult to classify. Bacon created his own artist language, based on the alteration, deformation and mutilation of the human figure, which he placed in undefined spaces and monochromatic backgrounds that accentuate the drama of the scene. Suffering and pain are highly visible in his deeply autobiographical painting, which is deeply autobiographical, such as in Self Portrait with Injured Eye (1972), in which the artist expresses his pain following the suicide of his lover, George Dyer. The distorted figure shows his internal struggle, fragmented identity and self-destructive character.

María Blanchard (Santander, 1881 – Paris, 1932) is the only woman among this cast of renowned creators. Considered one of the best exponents, she was active in this movement with her own personality: first in a colourful Cubism, with compositions broken down into coloured bands, and later in a hermetic Cubism, in which she dissected objects into complex shapes. Among her works, marked by extraordinary plasticity, her still lifes are especially noteworthy, such as Cubist Composition (1916-1917), where she utilises closed structures, multiple perspectives and symbolic elements, like the bottle. Considered by Diego Rivera to be one of the leading artists in Paris at the time—outdone only by Picasso—she established herself in the 1920s as one of the great figures of the moment with her structured, unique and evocative figurative style, through which she expressed her inner experiences.

José Victoriano González, better known as Juan Gris (Madrid, 1887–1927), was a painter from early on. Around 1912, he reformulated Cubist language, allowing the composition of the work to organise its motif, rather than the inverse, and introduced papier collé – a form of collage using texts and printed elements – into his work. At the height of his artistic maturity, he painted his version of Harlequin (1918), synthesising forms and reducing the composition with an expressive use of colour, in constant dialogue with blue. Before passing away, he left behind theoretical writings on his art, defining his work as ‘flat and coloured architecture’.

Pancho Cossío (San Diego de los Baños, Cuba, 1894 – Alicante, 1970) deploys a more poetic approach. His work is characterised by lyrical figuration, with refined forms, shiny, impastoed surfaces, a restrained colour palette and rigorous formal synthesis. He harmonises colour, matter and form, while using transparencies and glazes to create soft, enveloping atmospheres. His work Portrait of my mother (1942) – in which curves, atmosphere and emotion reign – reminds us that the artist always said he was only capable of painting a portrait when he knew the model very well.

This view is in contrast to the social and sombre approach of José Gutiérrez Solana (Madrid, 1886–1945), whose portraits were considered by Jaime Botín himself to be his best work and of the best art of his time. Whose work reflects a personal and critical view of Spanish society. His particular world, known as “Solanesque”, does not reflect the plural Spain of his time, only a dark, marginal and personal part of it. His paintings emphasise everyday scenes rather than characters, and are always full of symbolic details. An example of this is the portrait of his friend Emeterio, The Mask Maker (1944), where the figures seem suspended in a setting laden with objects that reinforce the expressive tension. His painting shows a clear intention of social criticism, addressing themes like death, religiosity and the carnival with a sensitivity close to expressionism. Solana channels his introspective vision of the world into his works. His work is, in essence, an intense, detailed and lucid chronicle of a dark and existential Spain.

Through a very different lens, Henri Matisse (Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 1869 – Nice, 1954) synthesised the tradition of the 19th century, but transformed it through his subjective and emotional use of colour, an approach that made him a central figure of Fauvism. After exploring Andalusia, he was deeply impressed by the Alhambra and its decorative symbolism, which influenced his painting and inspired him to incorporate elements such as shawls, brocades and combs into his works. Later, his style evolved towards a more serene and intimate work focused on the expression of colour and visual sensuality. In this sense, in Femme espagnole (1917), he combines the influence of Cubism with his own lighter, more subtle style, omitting narrative and facial expression in favour of a silent and serene painting.

A more raw and material vision is offered by Manolo Millares (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1926 – Madrid, 1972), a key figure in Spanish informalism and co-founder of the El Paso group, the nucleus of Spanish artistic renewal. Self-taught and devoted, his work with sewn and painted burlap expresses a visual truth marked by destruction, memory and violence. In works such as Painting 105 (1960), he uses matter as a means of expressing existential pain, tackling historical and social issues with intensity. In Neanderthalio 3 (1970), black, white and red dominate his palette, conferring symbolic meanings on death, blood and lime (calcium oxide), developing gestural and theatrical imprints. Millares was an artist with a strong ideological commitment, which is reflected in his work, which is at once protest and emotion.

Poetry and freedom define the work and creative temperament of Joan Miró (Barcelona, 1893 – Palma de Mallorca, 1983). His visual language departs from all rational logic in favour of a dreamlike worldview. Although close to surrealism, his style is deeply personal and lyrical. In works such as Femme et oiseau devant la lune (1944), the figurative dissolves into the symbolic. His art is a quest for absolute freedom, expressed through a refined technique and elements charged with lyrical energy.

With an early sensitivity towards the marginal, Isidre Nonell (Barcelona, 1872–1911) is a key figure of the generation following Modernism. Half-body figure (1907) marks a change in his subject matter; he evolved towards a softer, more sensual palette, primarily white and blue, and abandoned defined contours in favour of modelling with colour, a positive and luminous shift indicative of the influence of Noucentisme on Catalan culture at the time.

Geometric abstraction finds one of its most rigorous representatives in Pablo Palazuelo (Madrid, 1915–2007). His work is radically removed from figurative art and presents a universe of pure forms, where mysticism, mathematics and construction converge. In Orto II (1967–1969), minimal lines and chromatic planes configure a spiritual quest through geometry, always in dialogue with abstract thought, reflecting a unique language that transcends form.

From the American art scene, the unmistakable Mark Rothko (Latvia, 1903 – New York, 1970) embodies abstract expressionism. In art, Rothko found a vehicle for spiritual and emotional expression, developing a mystical vision. In 1959, the year he painted Untitled (Red and Brown), he travelled to Europe and visited the convent of San Marco in Florence, where he contemplated the frescoes by Fra Angelico, which resonated through his work and shaped his idea that colour also conveys religious feelings.

Joaquín Sorolla (Valencia, 1863 – Cercedilla, Madrid, 1923) is one of the great masters of Spanish painting. With a modern and sensitive eye, he employs light as an emotional and aesthetic vehicle, forging a unique style within European painting at the turn of the century. He painted outdoors to capture the light and dynamism of his surroundings, which we can see in The Bath (1908), painted in El Cabañal de Valencia, which stands out for its luminous sensitivity and the compositional use of the figures of the children; as does Girl with Blue Ribbon (1908), an intimate, eminently attractive work of great realism and very balanced composition. These works reinforce his mastery in the representation of landscape and figure.

For his part, Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona, 1923–2012), a key figure in material informalism, explores the fragility of human beings and their inner world in his painting. In works such as Black Form No. LXXXII (1958) and Ochre-Grey Square (1961), texture already predominates, giving the pieces a third dimension and revealing his search for the essential, far removed from aestheticism.

The collection wraps up with Daniel Vázquez Díaz (Nerva, 1882 – Madrid, 1969), who represents a synthesis of tradition and innovation. Works such as Woman in Red (1931) reveal his mastery of colour, form and spatial construction, and showcase his style, characterised by a sober, sensitive modernity, far removed from the radicalism of the avant-garde. An intellectual and voracious reader, he made a decisive contribution to bridging the Spanish pictorial tradition and contemporary European trends. He also established a fruitful career as a teacher, exerting a notable influence on the generations of artists who followed him.

In short, this new and expanded collection of works pulls us into the unique microcosm of Jaime Botín, revealing to the viewer not only the richness and diversity of 20th-century art, but also the profound connection between artistic creation and human experience. Through personal languages, each artist reveals a unique perspective that dialogues with their time and continues to challenge the contemporary viewer. As a whole, the collection constitutes a valuable testimony to the many ways in which art has, throughout the century, sought to understand, question and transform the world.

—

Photo caption: Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz, Director of exhibitions and the collection at Centro Botín; Begoña Guerrica- Echevarría, Director of Art Department; Iñigo Saenz de Miera, General Director of Fundación Botín; Fátima Sánchez Santiago, Executive Director of Centro Botín, and Mª José Salazar, member at the Art Advisory Committee of Fundación Botín.

Photographer’s credit: Pedro Puente Hoyos