Valeriano Bozal, art historian and great connoisseur of Goya, died at the age of 82

Art historian valerian muzzle, a key reference in Francisco de Goya studies, died this Sunday in Madrid at the age of 82, according to his family. Bozal, professor of the history of contemporary art at the Complutense University, was a permanent collaborator of the Museo del Prado and one of the first experts to question in 2008 that the painting colossus Goya It was not painted by an Aragonese genius, as the then curator of the National Art Gallery, Manuela Mena, claimed. for thirteen years colossus It was attributed to the pupil of the painter from Fuendetodos, the Valencian Asensio Juliá, until the Prado corrected it in 2021, returning the authorship to Goya, as Bozal has always defended.

Although he was an art historian, Bozal, who was born in Madrid in 1940, graduated in philosophy from Complutense and before becoming a professor at the same university (he was also a professor of aesthetics at the Autonomous University), he taught for 16 years at the institute in Vallecas, where he was forged as a teacher and acquired popularizing tools that later led him to leave his mark on several generations of historians.

The researcher and art critic was also a well-known connoisseur of the works of Vermeer, Piero della Francesco and Brueghel. Prado honored him with several awards and collaborated in writing the Encyclopedia of that institution, from which he launched several exhibitions.

Bozal, who received the 2020 Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, also chaired the Royal Board of Trustees of the Reina Sofía Museum between 1994 and 1997. The institution released a message of condolence on its Twitter account this Sunday in which he mourned the death of a “fundamental historiographical reference recent decades”. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Valencian Institute of Modern Art.

Extensive bibliography

Very early author (published at age 22 know how to see art and with 26 Realism between development and underdevelopment, Bozal is primarily known for his bibliography on Goya, of which he was a great connoisseur. Their titles are like Goya and modern tastewhose cover precisely illustrates colossus, Goya’s black paintings and Francisco de Goya, life and work. He also wrote about Antonio Machado, and in 2021 he published his latest book, his own memoirs entitled Chronicle of a decade and change of place, a very personal account of intellectual, political and moral life during the dictatorship and the first years of democracy. He also managed a collection of books of essays Raft of the Medusawhere he published History of painting and sculpture of the 20th century in Spainand during the Transition he was in charge of Our flag, PCE’s debate journal. the author History of art in Spainwhere he narrates the first artistic expressions from prehistory to the latest movements, Bozal was the curator of various exhibitions on Goya and contemporary art, and at the Venice Biennale in 1976, together with his colleague, now deceased, Tomás Llorens, he curated the exhibition Spain. Artistic avant-garde and social reality. 1936-1976.