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Title:	Murillo: Picturing the Prodigal Son
Date:	2/20/2022 - 6/12/2023
Address:	Meadows Museum, 5900 Bishop Blvd., Dallas, TX 75205
Location:	Dallas, TX
Hours:	Tuesday - Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. / Sunday: 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. / Thursday: 10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Cost/Cover:	free - $12
Web Page:	https://meadowsmuseumdallas.org/exhibitions/murillo-prodigal ...
Contact Info:	214.768.2516

Details:

During the 1660s, Sevillian artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682) set out to paint the biblical parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). Many artists tackling this subject focus on the story’s conclusion—that is, the prodigal son’s return from squandering his inheritance to be welcomed by his father’s forgiveness rather than his wrath. Murillo’s depiction, however, draws out the drama into a narrative cycle of six large canvases. Indeed, Murillo’s paintings represent the first time a Spanish artist painted the story in serial form. Murillo skillfully embellished the narrative, conveying the story’s themes of virtue and vice, regret and forgiveness, through the figures’ dramatic gestures and facial expressions. Each composition is at once singular and dynamic despite its preservation of narrative continuity. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the series has remained intact, the only by Murillo to be so, despite changing hands many times since its creation during one of the artist’s more prolific decades. Since 1987, the paintings have been in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.