Goya and the Art of Printmaking

In connection with the exhibition Goya and the Age of Revolution, the Goya Research Center at the Hispanic Society will offer a course exploring the artist’s practice as a printmaker. Open to the general public, the course introduces the techniques he used, as well as the social and political issues he addressed across multiple series spanning from 1777 to 1828.

The course will be run in two sections. The first section is open to the general public and the second is open to undergraduate and graduate students. The number of participants is limited to 15 for each section. The registration fee for the entire course is $50 for the general public and $25 for student

Location: Reading Room of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library.

Dates: April 16, 23, 30; May 14, 21; June 6 (Saturday)

Time: Thursdays at 10am (General Public) and 11am (Students)

If you are interested in attending the course, please fill out the statement of interest below. To be considered for participation in the course, you must complete this form by Monday, March 30th.

Session 1 (Thursday, April 16)

Between 1797 and 1798, Francisco Goya worked on a set of 80 prints titled The Caprices (Los Caprichos). In the first session, we will focus on the unique series of print proofs and the first edition owned by the Collection Prints and Photographs to delve into the social and political satire Goya developed through this publication. This series will also allow us to examine the prints closely and learn about the various techniques, such as etching, aquatint, and drypoint, which the artist combined on the plates for this project. 

Session 2 (Thursday, April 23)

During the second session, we will discuss the theme of bullfighting, its significance in Spanish culture, and in Francisco Goya’s worldview. Through the series Bullfighting (La Tauromaquia), published in 1816, the artist attempted to create a visual history of this practice in Spain, from its origins in scenes of people hunting bulls to representations of bullfighters in the early 19th century.

Session 3 (Thursday, April 30)

The third session will focus on the well-known series The Disasters of War (Los Desastres de la Guerra). Scholars have determined that Goya created the eighty-two plates for this series between 1810 and 1820. A period marked by a severe instability produced by the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, which started in 1808 and lasted until 1814. Through different plates, the artist depicted scenes of the war between Spaniards and French, images of the famine in Madrid between 1811 and 1812, and a poignant criticism to aristocrats and the clergy through the denominated “emphatic caprices.” We will also consider the implications of the artist’s death in the posthumous production of the print series, arranged in the workshop of the printer Laureano Potenciano for the Real Academia de Nobles Artes de San Fernando in 1863.

Session 4 (Thursday, May 14)

The artist created between 1815 and 1823 one of the most enigmatic series, The Follies (Disparates). This artistic endeavor coincides with the purchase and move to his famous estate La Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man) in August of 1819. In this session, we will look into the set of twenty-two prints, which depart from the more concrete themes that Goya represented in his previous print series, to create these images closer to the fantastic and in some cases even the grotesque. we will also look into the posthumous publication of 1864, titled The Proverbs (Los Proverbios), and the posterior four prints published in 1877 by the French art journal L’Art.  

Session 5 (Thursday, May 21)

We will discuss the single plates Francisco Goya created over the course of his career. After the survey of the four series, we can look at them with an enhanced perspective. These begin with his copies of famous paintings by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660) and conclude with his powerful lithographs of bullfighting scenes at the end of his life when he lived in exile in Bordeaux.

Session 6 (Saturday, June 6)

In the closing session of our course, we plan to hold a printmaking workshop with the artist Reynaldo García Pantaleón. Through this activity, we will introduce attendees to some practical details of printmaking.