During the last decade, the art world has experienced renewed interest in Islamic art, including its most contemporary movements. Several Islamic art collections with very important sets of works have been put on display at museums and galleries in Europe, the United States and Arab countries, offering the public the opportunity to become more familiar with this part of universal art history, which has been underrepresented and insufficiently discussed in manuals on art.

However, some institutions in Europe have true pioneers working in this field. This is the case of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, whose collection was first created in the second half of the nineteenth century with the objective of making Islamic art a source of inspiration for British designers of that era. This work has continued to date by introducing a contemporary dimension through the creation of the Jameel Prize, an exhibition of which was hosted by Casa Árabe in 2012.

Tim Stanley, Senior Curator of the Middle Eastern Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum and a member of the Scientific Board of the Louvre Museum in Paris, will be talking to us about the current challenges faced by Islamic Art collections and how to bring those collections closer to the general public.

The event took place at 7:00 p.m. in our auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). In English with a simultaneous translation into Spanish. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.

Tim Stanley

Senior Curator of the Middle Eastern Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum since 2002, Mr. Stanley has worked since 2006 on the creation of the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at that museum, as well as the Ceramics Gallery opened in 2009. He has also been responsible for development of the Jameel Prize, an international award for art and contemporary design inspired by the Islamic tradition. Tim Stanley is a specialist in Islamic manuscripts and decorative arts and has curated numerous exhibitions. His most recent articles include Iznik ceramics between Asia and Europe, 1470s-1550s (2011), A Mamluk tray and its journey to the V&A (2012), and Ottoman-period manuscripts from the Haramayn (2013).

Santiago Saavedra

Educated as a physicist, in 1970 Mr. Saavedra became a co-founder of Incafo, an institute dedicated to the dissemination of topics related with nature and publications on national parks. In 1982, he founded Ediciones El Viso, a publishing company dedicated essentially to publications for museums and cultural institutions, in both Spain and other countries, above all the United States. He is Vice-President of FEPMA (Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Protection), a member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Carlos de Amberes Foundation, a member of the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie with headquarters in Paris, and Vice-President of the Friends’ Association of the Hispanic Society of America in New York.
 

Guillermo de Osma

An art historian, gallery owner and specialist on the figure of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Guillermo de Osma began to take an interest in this artist’s work in 1978. He has curated various exhibitions on the designer, and in 1981 he published his book Mariano Fortuny. His life and work (London, Aurum Press, and New York, Rizzoli, 1980). He is also the author of Mariano Fortuny, Proust y los Ballets Rusos (Mariano Fortuny, Proust and the Russian Ballets, Barcelona, Elba, 2010) and the recently published Mariano Fortuny, arte, ciencia y diseño (Mariano Fortuny, Art, Science and Design, Madrid, Ollero y Ramos, 2012). During the 1990’s, he opened the Guillermo de Osma Gallery in Madrid, a space which specializes in the European and Latin American historical avant-garde.