Goya’s Graphic Imagination

Regarded as one of the most remarkable artists from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Francisco Goya (1746–1828) is renowned for his prolific activity as a draftsman and printmaker, producing about nine hundred drawings and three hundred prints during his long career. Through his drawings and prints, he expressed his political liberalism, criticism of superstition, and distaste for intellectual oppression in unique and compelling ways.

This exhibition will explore Goya's graphic imagination and how his drawings and prints allowed him to share his complex ideas and respond to the turbulent social and political changes occurring in the world around him. The broadly chronological presentation will follow Goya's evolution and different phases as a graphic artist as well as his approaches to his subjects. Around one hundred works on display will come mainly from The Met collection—one of the most outstanding collections of Goya's drawings and prints outside Spain—with other works coming from New York, Boston, and Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado and the Biblioteca Nacional.

Accompanied by a catalogue.

"[The exhibition] offers a vital tonic from an artist with (to our eyes) all the right political commitments: horrified by violence, revolted by unearned privilege, standing up for freedom and knowledge and rights for all." —The New York Times

"The show is a marvel… it strikes wide and deep, balancing eminent works with obscurities..." —Financial Times

"...[the exhibition] stacks up less like an art event and more like a revelation." —The Village Voice

"...This urgent and timely show of the Spanish master's works on paper illuminates the artist’s dim view of humanity and his extraordinary imagination." —The Art Newspaper

The exhibition is made possible by the Placido Arango Fund and Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson.

The catalogue is made possible by the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.

Additional support is provided by Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson and the Tavolozza Foundation.