Zurbarán

A giant in the history of Spanish art, Francisco de Zurbarán was one of the great painters of 17th-century Seville, a centre of global trade. His vivid paintings, from small still lifes to soaring altarpieces, burst with naturalism and convey intense spiritual experiences. Renowned as a painter of fabrics, Zurbarán represented extravagant clothing as well as the austere robes of monks with unsurpassed skill. He was also a careful observer of lived reality. Ordinary items – a ceramic vessel, a wicker basket, a rose – bring his extraordinary subjects closer to everyday life, then and now. This exhibition, the first ever devoted to the artist in the UK, brings some of his greatest paintings to London from all over the world. It also includes beautiful and rare still lifes by his talented son, Juan de Zurbarán. Presenting works from across Zurbarán’s entire career, we reunite pictures from several of his important religious commissions, staggering in scale, and also show his still lifes and smaller works, some of them intended for domestic settings. Exhibition organised by the National Gallery, London, Musée du Louvre, Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago.