The Bancaja Foundation presents the exhibition  ‘Scenes and Landscapes in Valencian Painting. 19th and 20th Centuries’, an anthological exhibition that explores the costumbrist drift of Valencian genre painting, offering a new perspective on the significance, and evolution of this artistic movement in the visual arts of the period. Curated by Art History professor Francisco Javier Pérez Rojas, the exhibition brings together more than 50 Valencian artists who, between 1850 and 1940, renewed the academic canons in the pictorial representation of costumbrista scenes and landscapes during that period.

The list of artists present in the exhibition includes Joaquín Agrasot, Francisco Aguar, Agustín Almar, Teodoro Andreu, José Barreira, José Benavent, Manuel Benedito, José Benlliure Ortiz, José Benlliure Gil, Luis Beut, José Bru, Francisco Cabedos, Vicente Castell, Enrique Cuñat, Francisco Domingo Marqués, Luis Dubón, Rafael Estellés, Antonio Esteve, Bernardo Ferrándiz, Emilio Ferrer, Pedro Ferrer Calatayud, Emilio Ferrero Gómez, Antonio Fillol, Isidoro Garnelo, Balbino Giner, Constantino Gómez, Josep Guiteras, José Manaut, Enrique Martínez-Cubells Ruiz, Salvador Martínez Cubells, José Mongrell, Bartolomé Mongrell, Antonio Muñoz Degrain, José Navarro, Enrique Navas, Julio Peris Brell, José Pinazo, Ignacio Pinazo, Cecilio Pla, Josep Renau, Amadeo Roca, Honorio Romero, Emilio Ros, José Ros, José Segrelles, Pedro Serrano, Joaquín Sorolla, Ramón Stolz, Luis Felipe Usabal, Ernesto Valls, Emilio Varela and Julio Vila Prades.

The exhibition explores themes such as rural customs with scenes of farmers and market gardeners; the modernity of festive posters; the happy Arcadia of the market garden and its hedonistic vision; the sea and the Albufera of Valencia; Valencian women; and popular religiosity.

For the proposed historiographical review, the exhibition brings together more than a hundred works, many of them previously unpublished, from a total of 37 institutional collections such as the Museo Nacional del Prado, Museo Carmen Thyssen in Málaga, Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Museo de la Ciudad, Valencia City Council, Historical Archive of Valencia, Museum of Fine Arts in Valencia, Benlliure House Museum, Pinazo House Museum, González Martí Museum of Ceramics and Sumptuary Arts, Almudín Municipal Museum, Madrid History Museum, CaixaBank, Valencia Provincial Council, Castellón Museum of Fine Arts (Castellón Provincial Council), Gravina Museum of Fine Arts in Alicante (MUGAB, Alicante Provincial Council), Bancaja Foundation, Xàtiva City Council, as well as private collections.

The exhibition allows us to appreciate the persistence of the image of the rural world in Valencian art since the mid-19th century, as well as the figure of the peasant as the subject of an identity in the process of dissolution in the face of the uniform advance of modern society.

The exhibition features masterpieces by artists such as Bernardo Ferrándiz, Muñoz Degrain, Ignacio Pinazo, José Benlliure, Joaquín Sorolla, Cecilio Pla, José Mongrell, Vila Prades, José Pinazo Martínez, Emilio Ferrer and Estellés Bartual, among others.

The exhibition also includes an audiovisual presentation with images of the 1905 Battle of Flowers, taken from the collections of the Valencian Film Library (Valencian Institute of Culture). Along with the audiovisual presentation, photographs of the same festival, provided by the Valencian Digital Library (Bivaldi), are also shown.

The graphic chronicle of Valencian painting from the period will be included in the catalogue that the Bancaja Foundation will publish for the exhibition. It will include reproductions of the works on display alongside a text written by Professor Francisco Javier Pérez Rojas, which delves into the historical, political and social context of the time, while also exploring the aesthetic and stylistic changes in Valencian art between 1850 and 1940.

As part of its cultural and artistic mediation programme, the Bancaja Foundation also offers guided tours of the exhibition led by an expert specialist in art and cultural mediation.

Report by ‘24/7 Valencia’ team

Article copyright ‘24/7 Valencia’

‘Scenes and landscapes in Valencian painting. 19th and 20th centuries’

Date: From 05/09/2025 to 10/19/2025

CENTER BANCAJA FOUNDATION

Plaza de Tetuán, 23, Valencia

Time

Tuesday to Sunday: 10am-2pm and 4.30pm-8.30pm.

Closed on Mondays, except holidays and the eve of holidays.

Rules for visiting the exhibition .

Entries

General: 9 euros.

Reduced: 5 euros (pensioners, unemployed, people with disabilities, students aged 13 to 26, large families and single parents).

Free (children under 12 and those accompanying a disabled person).

Ticket sales at the box office (Plaza Tetuán, 23).

Each ticket grants access to all exhibitions currently on display at the Bancaja Foundation at the time of the visit.

Guided tours

General public

• Duration: 50 minutes.
• Minimum attendance of 6 people per session for the activity to be carried out.
• Price: €5 + Exhibition entrance.
• Information and reservations: visitascomentadas@fundacionbancaja.es .

Groups 

• Duration: 50 minutes.
• Sessions: Tuesday: 10am, 11am, 12pm, 5pm, 6pm and 7pm / Wednesday: 10am, 11am and 12pm.
• Maximum capacity 25 people.
• Information and reservations: visitascomentadas@fundacionbancaja.es .
• https://www.fundacionbancaja.es/