Francisco Goya Research Center Launches in New York City

New York’s Hispanic Society Museum & Library is opening a Goya Research Center this month. Based in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, the new center anticipates the 200th anniversary of Francisco Goya’s death in 2028. The center aims to inspire “a new generation of Goya scholars.”

The Hispanic Society’s Goya Research Center will be led by Guillaume Kientz, a renowned Francisco Goya scholar. Previously, Kientz was curator of Spanish and Latin American art at the Louvre Museum in Paris for nine years. So far, the research center has established a new Goya Research Committee, which will meet for the first time this month. In the future, the center plans to curate Goya exhibitions, publish books, create a fellowship program, and host an annual symposium.

Kientz hopes the Goya Research Center in New York will help renew interest in Francisco Goya, particularly given the prevalence of the artist’s work in the U.S. About seventy Goya paintings, as well as several drawings and prints, are currently in American collections. “We are talking about someone at a level of Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo or Rembrandt,” said Kientz. “We are just a handful of scholars interested in Goya’s work. Compared to the importance of the artist, it’s almost shocking.”

The Center Also Aims to Conduct Provenance Research

The Goya Research Center is poised to be a central location for museums, institutions, and scholars to further the field of Goya scholarship. The center is especially interested in conducting provenance research, including reevaluating works with contested attributions. The Hispanic Society owns four paintings, thirteen drawings, and hundreds of prints by Francisco Goya. The collection also includes would-be Goya paintings that were downgraded after the publication of Goya’s catalogue raisonné in the 1970s. “We’re not the only museum or collection in this situation,” said Kientz. “So, it would be very interesting, insightful, and helpful that we get together and we consider these cases, compare the technical analysis that we have, and move forward together—that promises to be a very interesting discussion.”

Francisco Goya was the most important and influential Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. With his remarkable technical mastery, forward-thinking expressivity, and poignant social commentary, Goya is uniquely remembered as one of the last of the Old Masters and one of the earliest Modernists. “Goya is such an important artist. His reach goes beyond Spain, or only the 18th and 19th centuries,” explained Kientz. “He’s really one of those humanist artists, like Leonardo or Michelangelo or Rembrandt, who resonates through time and space.” Research on the artist has slowed in recent decades, according to Kietz. So, he said, “I thought it was our responsibility to foster a new generation who would dedicate their time and grey cells to Goya.