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First exhibition dedicated to the painter Juan de Pareja opens at the Met

From April 3 to July 16, 2023, the Metropolitan Museum presents “Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter”, an exhibition focusing on the life and artistic achievements of the painter Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608–1670)

Source: Metropolitan Museum · Image: Juan de Pareja (Spanish, ca. 1608–1670). The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1661. Oil on canvas, 88 1/2 in. x 10 ft. 8 in. (225 x 325 cm). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P001041). Photo: © Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado

Largely known today as the subject of The Met’s iconic portrait by Diego Velázquez, Pareja was enslaved in Velázquez’s studio for more than two decades before becoming an artist in his own right. This presentation is the first to tell his story and examine the role of enslaved artisanal labor and a multiracial society in the art and material culture of Spain’s so-called “Golden Age.” The presentation brings together approximately 40 paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts objects, as well as an array of books and historic documents, from The Met’s holdings and other collections in the United States and Europe.

In this exhibition, representations of Spain’s Black and Morisco populations in works by Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Velázquez join works that chart the ubiquity of enslaved labor across media, from sculpture to silver. The Met’s portrait, executed by Velázquez in Rome in 1650, is contextualized by his other portraits from this period and the original manumission document whereby Pareja was freed upon return to Madrid. The exhibition culminates in the first gathering of Pareja’s rarely seen paintings, some of enormous scale, which engage with the canons of Western art while reverberating throughout the African diaspora.

Harlem Renaissance collector and scholar Arturo Schomburg was vital to the recovery of Pareja’s work and serves as a thread connecting 17th-century Spain with 20th-century New York, providing a lens through which to view the multiple histories that have been written about Pareja. Schomburg’s collecting and writing are highlighted through a core group of loans from The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in Upper Manhattan will present a dossier exhibition, In Search of Juan de Pareja: From Arturo Schomburg to Jas Knight, that explores recent interests and responses to Pareja as an artist, a sitter, a person, and a symbol. It will feature the contemporary practice of the painter Jas Knight, who, through The Met’s Copyist Program, is creating a copy of Velazquez’s portrait of Pareja. A video documenting Knight’s process will be available on The Met’s website.

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