The Antonio Manuel Campoy Museum (MAMC) in figures.

Within what we can call works, we will distinguish two main modalities when it comes to being practical: paintings and sculptures, and within the former we will follow the criteria of the catalog that classifies them on the one hand into “Painting, drawing and engraving” and , on the other, in “Engravings and etchings folders“, in addition to the third section of  “Sculptures“.

We have proceeded to contrast the different inventories of the works donated by the Campoy family with those registered in the catalog and in the examination of piece by piece, resulting in the numbering given to some of them, rather than a typical painting It was, for example, a family coat of arms, a photo or some written text, yes, framed. This makes the total number of tables in the inventory 393, when in fact there are 390 that can be considered as such.

Table 1: Number of MAMC Values

MAMC museum tour.

When the palace of the Marquis was restored and we got ready to hang the pictures on its walls, along with the placement of the sculptures, both Rosita and Anastasio expressed their idea that their distribution and order through the exhibition spaces should not follow the criteria of the museum It is conventional to group the works by their artistic styles, but rather that their arrangement is done as it is done in a domestic environment, in which we place an impressionist painting next to a cubist, for example, aligned with a hyper-realistic work, this other example is also worth it. , and without leaving empty walls with hardly any hanging pictures. A placement that we could call familiar, as if entering the museum was similar to entering the Campoy house itself, full of pieces by the most prominent artists of 20th century Spanish contemporary art.

In the museum we can distinguish seventeen spaces of which four of them correspond to the four semi-cylindrical bastions in the four corners of the ground floor, which in peacetime were used to store gunpowder. As we will see, some of these spaces, although with different initially assigned uses, also ended up serving as showrooms given the high number of works donated by the Campoy family.

The Rooms.

From room 1 or hall, where we already find a couple of hanging paintings, room 2 opens to the left, which when the museum was opened was intended to be dedicated to temporary exhibitions, but which, due to the large number of pieces, became a more exhibition room and store of books from the Antonio Manuel Campoy library.

In this room, still unexposed, is folder number 11 of ten etchings and lithographs made by the painter Marola, with texts / tributes to the painter from different art critics, including Antonio Manuel Campoy. And on its walls we can also see the work «Abstracción», by Mercedes Gómez Pablos, an expressive composition, made with a mixed technique. And very close to it, a small painting by the Indalian and Almeria painter Francisco Capuleto, who draws us some «Toreros» with ink pen, in an expressionist style.

To the right of the hall the assembly hall opens, converted into room 3, where we can see other paintings, including the engraving of a woman, in which its author, Matías Quetglas, makes a commitment to realism.

Returning to the hall, in front of the entrance, we enter the interior patio, room 4, where some works are also hung, and, behind its glass door, in room 9 we can see Francisco Abuja‘s painting «El arte alimenta la paz» , figurative work, made in oil on canvas, in which its author shows his tendency to imagination and symbolism.

In room 10 we can see a small and characteristic work of a landscape by the Indalian painter from Almería Miguel Cantón Checa. This figurative work is a characteristic example of its author’s technique of painting the Almeria landscape like few others, with its famous “Chancas“, in which the Mediterranean light stands out.

In the same room stands out the magnificent oil on canvas by María Ángeles Armas Marcelo entitled “Sign and chimera“, a surrealist work full of symbolism. And on the same wall, we stop at the «Puerta de Purchena», a watercolor by the Cueva landscape artist José Antonio Canteras Alonso, and at «Mujer tumbada», a figurative work in oil on canvas by Ricardo Serny.

In this room, in four showcases, some of the plates from the first of the etchings and etchings folders (by Javier Clavo), third (by Maruja Mallo), fourth (by Albert Duce) and sixth (by Enrique) are kept and exhibited. Cortina and Arregui).

Going up the stairs to the first floor we can see two avant-garde works. Firstly, the “Dados” silkscreen by the Hungarian Víctor Vassarely, a beautiful geometric composition of optical art, in which linear and polyhedral dynamism is combined with a calculated color combination limited to white, red and black. And secondly, the work of the Bulgarian María Droc «Juegos ópticos» brings us once again the innovative air of modernity with the pieces that make up a frame-object.

Room 11 could be called the one with the Campoy family portraits, some oil paintings on canvas by Anastasio, painted by Joaquín Cánovas; of Rosita, by Guillermo Vargas Ruiz, and of Antonio Manuel, by Antonio Bisquert. In the same room we can also enjoy the magnificent “Primavera” by Enrique Padiel, a true explosion of colors in quasi-impressionist brushstrokes but in a figurative work, and the work of Jesús de Perceval, in encaustic, “Head of a woman. Sadness“.

Also very interesting is Venancio Blanco’s sculpture of «Santa Teresa», in cast bronze, with a post-cubist style, with which the artist became the master of the new religious sculpture

Room 12 is dominated by an oil on canvas, resting on an easel, by Pilar de Aristegui, «Ferias-Kenya», in a naive style, in the artist’s line of recreating paradise with suggestive naivety.

Three showcases contain three folders of engravings and etchings: the second (by Guillermo Vargas Ruíz), the seventh (by Vicente Arnás) and the eighth (by Carmen Lastra).

In the same room, Perceval’s disciple Francisco Alcaraz, in his oil on canvas «Niña» makes a colorist exaltation characteristic of the Indalian movement.

Room 13 is perhaps the most important in the museum. In it we begin by contemplating a drawing by Benjamín Palencia, «Dibujo de una mujer», which brings us closer to his good work as an expressionist painter, just like Antoni Tápies with his «Fantasía», a mixed media informalist work, places us before one of the most prestigious painters in Spain.

«Campesino de la Olmeda», an oil on canvas by Álvaro Delgado, is an expressionist work of cubist influence, which reflects the testimony of its author of his passage through the Madrid region that gives its name to the painting, portraying his peasant.

Another outstanding work in the same room is the also oil on canvas by Manuel Baeza entitled “Maternidad“, which although surrealist in style has a stylization close to cubism. Just as the sketch by José Gutiérrez Solana is important for a larger work, in oil on panel, in an expressionist style with gloomy pictorial tints..

Also noteworthy is Pablo Ruiz Picasso‘s engraving of the series “La mujer y el minotauro“, within the mythological figurative tradition.

Finally, we will stop at the sculptures by Venancio Blanco, «Cisne», and at the one by Santiago de Santiago, «Cabeza del príncipe de España», both in cast bronze.

In the converted showcase of one of the two doors that connect rooms 13 and 14 we find small sculptures, such as Pablo Serrano‘s “Toro“, and small works of great value, such as the silkscreen printing by Joan Miró and the drawing without Picasso title.

In room 14, we stop our gaze on the still life of Luz Márquez, an oil on figurative panel, and on Nicolás Martínez Ortiz‘s «Remeros vascos», a post-cubist oil on canvas.

In a display case is the ninth folder of engravings and etchings, by Alberto Duce.

In room 15, which recreates the office of Antonio Manuel Campoy, a painting on an easel presides over the exhibition space, a portrait of the art critic executed in oil on canvas by Betsy Westendorp, a figurative work.

In a display case is the ninth folder of engravings and etchings, by Alberto Duce.

In room 16 we fix our gaze on the «Mujer con niña a la espalda», an oil on canvas by José Cruz Herrera, who usually paints Andalusian themes, specifically within a figuration with echoes of Sorolla; and in «Figura músico», by José Barreiro Gómez, another oil on canvas in the expressionist style, not far removed from Fauvism

The room is decorated by two showcases that keep a set of ten pistols, one, and the second other weapons together with the wooden plate for the impression of General Enrique Segura Campoy.

After the visit to the museum located in the old palace of the Marquis, we can move to the Goya room, in an annex of the Tercia building, where we can first contemplate the 22 engraved plates of etchings and water-inks of «Los absurdities ”by Goya (fifth folder), presiding over the space is the sculpture by Agustín de la Herrán and, already in the cellar, with their jars, the engravings by the same painter collected in 45 engravings that make up his“ Tauromaquia ”(tenth folder). In addition, we can discover an engraving incorporated later than the two folders, also by Goya, «El toro mariposa».

The museum was extended outside the palace to an annex of the Tercia building and the old winery, already restored, forming the Goya room, which was opened to the public on July 11, 2007.

In the space before the winery, on vertical methacrylate displays, the 22 engraved plates of etchings and aquatints from the series “Los disparates” or “Los proverbios” by Francisco de Goya were placed.

The series is from 1976, this being the number 245 of the 500 numbered folders that were made. The plates were engraved from the original templates that Goya made between 1816 and 1823, although they were not published with him alive. Already in the winery itself, the 45 engravings by the same painter, from the series “La tauromaquia“, members of the only colored edition that was made, and which were prefaced by Antonio Manuel Campoy, were hung on the walls.

In 2008 another Goya engraving would be incorporated, “El toro mariposa“, which we can also see in the winery space.