| Robert Züblin | 07.10.2022 | 18:13 h |
On occasion of 100th anniversary of death of ceramist Daniel Zuloaga
The exhibition “Daniel Zuloaga (1852-1921)” will run from May 18, 2022 to November 20, 2022 at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava (Museum of Fine Arts Álava), located in the Basque capital Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain. The occasion for the Zuloaga exhibition is the 100th anniversary of Daniel Zuloaga’s death in 2021.
In 1867, at the age of 15, Daniel Zuloaga began his five-year apprenticeship at the Manufacture royale de porcelaine de Sèvres in France, one of the most important porcelain manufactories in Europe. Zuloaga, however, wanted to create a counterpoint to the attempts to copy porcelain production from Sèvres and elsewhere in Europe.
An exhibition brochure for a Daniel Zuloaga exhibition in Madrid circa 1912 states:
“What Zuloaga avoids is vile imitation. The student of Sèvres, with all due respect, felt that the opposite should be done. One thing is tableware for eating made of unsightly materials and another thing is a decorative object that has no other purpose than to please the eye, and that is why Zuloaga is much more interested in earthenware than in porcelain, which, as has been said, is discredited by those great industries that flood all the shop windows of Madrid with ridiculous bisque porcelain as parodies of Sèvres, Sax, Berlin, Vienna, Chelsen, etc. which cannot enter the room of a person trained in art.”
Eight Zuloaga ceramics on display
A total of eight ceramics by Daniel Zuloaga will be on display in the exhibition, including a bust of a flamenco dancer, previously called “The Gypsy” but which, thanks to a loan as part of the exhibition “Zuloaga, entre lo gitano y el flamenco” (video accompanying the exhibition) in Granada, has since been given a name: Agustina.
Besides the Agustina bust, there are other works by Daniel Zuloaga in the current exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava, namely a pictorial box, pictorial tiles and pictorial vases, and a vase with a coat of arms.
On the museum’s page about the current Daniel Zuloaga exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava there is both a video about the exhibition and a link to a detailed exhibition brochure with a lot of information about the life of Daniel Zuloaga and the exhibits.