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Reina Sofía Opens Major Maruja Mallo Retrospective Reuniting the Five 'Verbenas'

Curated by Patricia Molins, the show casts Mallo as a pioneer of the modern woman within the Generation of '27.

Overview

  • The show opens with the first reunion in nearly a century of the five 1928 'verbenas' initially presented in Ortega y Gasset’s Revista de Occidente salons.
  • Approximately 100 paintings are shown alongside about 100 documents and photographs and around 70 drawings, mapping the breadth of her practice.
  • Curatorial research reconstructs lost or destroyed works through reproductions and archives, underscoring her exile shifts including an Argentine 'black' period and surrealist, macabre denunciations of entrenched powers.
  • The exhibition is produced with Fundación Botín and features examples of her theatrical scenography.
  • Museum director Manuel Segade says the project addresses a long-overdue institutional debt to make women’s work visible, and it remains on view in Madrid through March 16, 2026.