SMU’s Meadows Museum is the only U.S. venue for the exhibition “Juan van der Hamen y Leon and the Court of Madrid,” which will be on display from March 16 through May 28, 2006.à

This exhibit is the first show ever devoted to the virtually unknown Golden Age painter van der Hamen. This show is curated by Dr. William B. Jordan, founding director of the Meadows Museum and the world’s leading authority on van der Hamen.

Van der Hamen was among the most talented of Spanish painter Diego Velázquez’s contemporaries at the Spanish court and was one of his few serious rivals until his untimely death at the age of 35.

The exhibition features 38 paintings from 20 museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Prado Museum in Madrid, as well as private collections in the United States, Spain, France, Italy and Germany.

Juan van der Hamen y Leon is known today as one of the most famous and prolific still-life painters of the 17th century. More than any artist of his time, he worked to make known the new genre of still-life painting in Spain and contributed hugely to determining the foundations of the genre for the next century.

Jordan said the work of van der Hamen has a far more decisive role in the development of Spanish painting than history has remembered. He also noted that van der Hamen’s work can be seen as overshadowed because of the fame of the glorified works of Velázquez.

Jordan has written a very in-depth exhibition catalogue, published by Yale University Press.

This catalogue is the result of 40 years of research and is the long-awaited, complete monograph on the painter.àThe catalogue treats the painter’s life and work while also serving as a lens for re-examining this formative period in the history of art.à

Dr. Mark A. Roglán, director of the Meadows Museum, praised the exhibit and its historical background.

“This exhibition, and its accompanying catalogue, represent an extraordinary scholarly achievement and a milestone in the study of Spanish painting,” he said. “It’s been our great honor to work with Dr. Jordan and our colleagues from the Patrimonio Nacional to bring it to fruition.”

For more information on the exhibition, call the Meadows Museum at 214-768-1199.