MIGUEL FALOMIR TO LEAD MADRID’S MUSEO DEL PRADO

Museo del Prado’s selection committee has unanimously chosen Miguel Falomir, who currently serves as deputy director of the museum, to replace director Miguel Zugaza, Hannah McGivern of the Art Newspaper reports. In November 2016, Zugaza announced that he was stepping down, after fifteen years at the helm of the institution, to head the Bilbao Museum. The Prado’s trustees will meet in March to review the decision, which must also be approved by Spain’s Council of Ministers before it’s official.

An Italian Renaissance specialist, Falomir joined the Prado in 1997 as the head of the department of Italian and French painting, pre-1700. Previously, he served as a professor of art history at the University of Valencia and as the Andrew Mellon Professor at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from 2008 to 2010. The numerous exhibitions Falomir organized for the Museo del Prado include “The Lavatory of Jacopo Tintoretto” (2000), “Tiziano” (2003), “Portrait of the Renaissance” (2008), and “The Furies: Political Allegory and Artistic Challenge” (2014).

According to El País_, Zugaza said that Falomir is the ideal candidate. The selection committee consisted of Zugaza, board chair José Pedro Pérez-Llorca, and representatives of the Spanish ministry of culture.