Goya’s Graphic Imagination

While some museums are closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Apollo’s usual weekly pick of exhibitions will include shows at institutions that are currently open as well as digital projects providing virtual access to art and culture.

Francisco de Goya’s prints and drawings show him at his most tortured, fantastical and politically acute. This show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (12 February–2 May) includes around 100 works on paper, tracing the development of his graphic style from his early career at the Spanish court through to famous series of prints such as Los Caprichos (1799) – a savage satire of the follies of Spanish society – and The Disasters of War (1810–20), deemed so politically sensitive that they were only published 35 years after Goya’s death. Find out more from the Met’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here

Self-portrait (c. 1796), Francisco de Goya. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Plate 42 from Los Caprichos: Thou who canst not (1799), Francisco de Goya. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Plate 15 from The Disasters of War: ‘And there is no help.’ (1810), Francisco de Goya. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York