Reina Sofia Museum Tour

Connect with Dalís and Picassos (including Guernica) in Spain's foremost contemporary art museum

Tour Details

About the Tour

Category: Art and Museums
Duration: 2.5 hours
Location: Madrid

Photos & Highlights

Explores highlights of the museum including Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica
Led by a local art historian
Reina Sofia Museum

Tour Description

The Reina Sofía is one of Madrid's most important museums and houses a fascinating collection of over 21,000 pieces. The main focus of the museum is Modernist 20th century art, including seminal works by Miró and Salvador Dalí, as well as Picasso's world-changing Guernica. On this 2.5-hour Reina Sofía private tour, we will join a local art historian with skip-the-line tickets to explore this fascinating collection. Beyond simply appreciating each work on its own, we will look closely at the political and social events that shaped this period of Spain's history and attempt to contextualize the art within its time.

Private Reina Sofia Museum Tour

We’ll begin with an introduction to Spain and the art world at the turn of the 20th century, considering the important role played by Spanish artists in the wave of avant-garde movements that became emblematic of the period. We'll examine work from Picasso and Juan Gris in relation to Cubism, to Dalí and Miró’s contributions to Surrealism.

Guernica in Context

Undoubtedly the most imposing and emblematic work found in the Reina Sofia is Picasso’s haunting masterpiece Guernica, the museum's centerpiece, chronicling the artistic response to the Spanish Civil War (for more on this era and the rise of fascism in Spain, try our Spanish Civil War tour). As we marvel at sheer scale of the painting, our guide will explain the bombing that inspired it, talk us through the different elements and the myriad of interpretations that have been applied to them, discuss the painting’s journey through Europe and beyond, and consider how it has become an allegory for the horrors of war. We will also examine the other works exhibited alongside it in Paris in 1937, and how art was used by the government as a means of drawing international attention to the bitter conflict that had erupted in Spain in 1936, whose effects are still profoundly felt in Madrid's art and society today.

Reina Sofia Museum with an Expert

We will then move on to the post-war period (both the Civil War and WWII), addressing the increasing prominence of American art as well as how the climate of the Franco dictatorship influenced the development of artists in Spain and led to the formation of artistic collectives such as the El Paso group and the Dau al Set.

We’ll conclude our private tour of the Reina Sofia on the lower floors of the museum, where the most modern works in the collection can be found, to see how Spanish art has evolved across the second half of the 20th century into the present day, branching out into other mediums and experimental techniques.

Take Aways

At the conclusion of the tour, you will come away with a more robust knowledge of Spanish artists of the 20th century, along with an insight into their influences and evolution within the wider sociocultural context of when they operated, and an appreciation of the continued relevance of their work today.

FAQ About the Reina Sofia Museum Private Tour

Will you purchase skip-the-line tickets for me?
Yes, though we will still need to wait in the small security line which is required of all visitors to the museum.

Is this tour wheelchair-accessible?
The museum is fully wheelchair accessible throughout. Please contact us to discuss in more detail your mobility concerns so that we can best advise.

Is this tour appropriate for children?
This walk is not a part of our official family program. That said, we may be able to arrange a visit with a family-friendly guide. Please contact us if you would like to explore this option.

I am interested in taking your Spanish Civil War tour, which I see also visits the Reina Sofia. Will there be overlap?
Our Spanish Civil War tour does indeed visit the Reina Sofia, to discuss Guernica in the context of the war. There will be overlap in that respect. Should you like to book the civil war tour privately, we can adjust the content so that there is no overlap.

Where You'll Start

Tour Experts

Andrea

Andrea Van Houtven received her Ph.D. in art history at the University of Maryland. Her dissertation was on the relationship between art and humanism at the Spanish court in the early 17th century, which inevitably led her to Madrid. She has lived in Madrid for 12 years where she has been teaching art history and art-related courses at various universities and private centers. She also participates in special events at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.

Barbara

Barbara Perucka has been living for more than five years in Madrid. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History, as well as her Bachelor’s degree in Italian Philology, at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland). Her research interests focus on medieval painting, art at European courts, and travel literature. Her doctoral thesis was dedicated to the decoration of a French manuscript "Livre des merveilles" (Book of Wonders, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. fr. 2810). She has published papers about late medieval tapestries and medieval illustrated accounts of a journey, and was a professor of art history at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and Nebrija University in Madrid. She also received several research grants in Paris, Dijon, Vienna, Pisa and Brussels.

Michael

Michael is a practicing artist and Ph.D. candidate with his research focusing on humor in contemporary art at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. He received his B.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Illinois at Chicago and M.F.A. in painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he was the recipient of the SAIC Graduate Fellowship. He has worked as an instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an advisor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has exhibited his work across the US as well as Cologne, Thessaloniki, Coimbra, and Madrid. He recently moved from New York to Madrid to conduct his research and explore all of the amazing history and art the city has to offer.

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24 Reviews – (4.77)

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Barbara was terrific about providing us with an understanding of the context of Guernica. Its timelessness is so amazing and apt in this present day.

Mary l.

Oct. 26, 2022

It was such a pleasure to have Marta as a guide in Reina Sofia museun. She was fantastic! Her level of knowledge blew our minds away.

Nataliya

Oct. 16, 2022

outstanding tour and discussion of the artworks in social and historical context. Barbara is very knowledgeable, engaging, friendly, and organized in her presentation. I would definitely do another tour with her in the future.

Lori

Sep. 14, 2022

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