Artes Nigel Glendinning Annual Lecture 2026: Zurbarán by Xavier Bray
Instituto Cervantes
The Nigel Glendinning Arts Lecture 2026: Zurbarán, delivered by curator Xavier Bray, will offer a rigorous yet accessible introduction to the life and work of Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), one of the key figures of the Spanish Golden Age and an undisputed master of Baroque painting. Through an exploration of the different stages of his artistic career, the lecture will examine the essential features of his pictorial language: his masterful use of light and shadow, the spiritual intensity of his compositions, and his unique ability to endow figures and objects with an almost tangible presence.
The analysis will pay particular attention to Zurbarán’s religious production—marked by profound spirituality and closely tied to monastic and convent commissions—as well as to his celebrated still lifes, in which everyday objects acquire a singularly powerful and silent symbolism within seventeenth-century European painting. The lecture will also consider the historical, social, and religious context in which Zurbarán developed his work, which is key to understanding both his aesthetic and its reception in his own time.
Xavier Bray, Director of The Wallace Collection, London, is a specialist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spanish painting and has held this post since October 2016. He previously served as Head of Conservation at Dulwich Picture Gallery, Curator at the National Gallery in London, and Head of Conservation at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, where he took part in its museological reorganisation. He has co-curated numerous exhibitions, including El Greco, Caravaggio: The Final Years, Velázquez, Murillo and Justino de Neve. In 2009, he organised his first exhibition, The Sacred Made Real, at the National Gallery, where he also presented Goya: The Portraits in 2015. He collaborated as scientific director on the documentary El Greco: Painter of the Invisible, presented at the Museo del Prado as part of the anniversary celebrations of the artist. In 2018, he organised Ribera: Art of Violence at Dulwich Picture Gallery, the first exhibition in the United Kingdom devoted to the Baroque painter.
