The unknown Malaga province art collection: famous portraits by renowned artists

When talking about institutional collections of paintings in Malaga province references are usually made to the municipal heritage museum, Mupam, which houses the art collection of Malaga city hall, or the Museum of Malaga, with the best selection of nineteenth-century paintings from the Malaga school.

Less known is the art collection of the Diputación (Malaga's provincial authority). This includes works from the 18th century to the present day, with masterpieces by great local artists such as José Denis Belgrano, Enrique Simonet, Horacio Lengo, Pedro Sáenz, Enrique Jaraba, Concha Mamely and, of course, Picasso. This September, part of the little-known collection has left warehouses, offices and other rooms to be put on display right in the city centre, in the exhibition space of the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País.

Entitled El Retrato en la Colección Artística de la Diputación de Málaga (The Portrait in the Art Collection of the Diputación de Málaga), the exhibition is impressive not only due to the signatures of its artists covering three centuries of history, but also for the characters who have been captured on canvas. For example, there is an anonymous oil painting of the former Spanish prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, which depicts him exuding authority and officialdom; a 1984 painting of Hispanist Gerald Brenan, which shows an image of the writer shortly before his death; and then an 18th-century portrait of the musician and writer Vicente Espinel from Ronda.

The tour also includes a portrait of the politician Romero Robledo, signed in 1904 by Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench; one of Canon Eugenio Marquina painted by Jaraba in 1915; the 1970 interpretation of the great Spanish inquisitor Fray Tomás de Torquemada by José Aguilera Hinojo; the detailed portrait of the bullfighter Joselito as a young man by Denis Belgrano in his last period of studio work; and the Homage to Góngora (1984) by Eugenio Chicano, a group portrait of García Lorca and the rest of the members of the Generation of '27. This last, iconic work of art also serves as the exhibition poster.

The general public has until 28 September to visit this unique and revealing exhibition of an art collection that is very rarely shown in just one place; most items are scattered around satellite offices of the Diputación or grace the walls of the Palacio Provincial in Plaza de la Marina. Nearly 800 pieces from the 19th and 20th centuries make up the Diputación's art collection - mainly paintings, drawings, sculptures and graphic works - from which the 26 portraits have been selected to be put on display in the two rooms of the Económica. The selection also includes works by Enrique Brinkmann (El Atropellado - 1969 - literally jumps off the canvas in 3D), Gabriel Alberca and a complex silkscreen by Pablo Picasso.

Although the Diputación has outstanding works from the 18th century, the provincial authority's collecting activity has been continuous since the 19th century when it supported the Academy of Fine Arts by endowing chairs and scholarships to the most outstanding students to travel and study in Paris or Rome, an activity that has continued to support the more recent generations of contemporary artists over time.

"From this [collection] we have selected portraits by artists, including the members of the Malaga school of painting, who shared the costumbrista style. But there are also other artists from Malaga who left an indelible mark from the mid-20th century onwards," said the Diputación's vice-president and delegate for culture, Manuel López, at the opening of the exhibition, where he was accompanied by the president of the Económica association and coordinator of the exhibition, José María Ruiz Povedano.

Due to the provincial scope of the Diputación, its art collection also responds fundamentally to authors linked to this province, although the exhibition also includes excellent examples of portraits by renowned national and international artists such as those painted by Luis Eduardo Aute, Ángel Aransay, Paul Hoffman, Felipe Orlando and Rafael Canogar.