An exhibition of masterpieces. More than 150 emblematic works. 130 artists on show. Exceptional loans.

The thematic and collective exhibition ‘Animal’, conceived by curator Christian Alandete, offers a cross-disciplinary and transhistorical approach to the place of the animal in artistic representations. Probably one of the earliest subjects in the history of art, the animal appears as early as cave art, and has remained just as important down the centuries.Animal painting was a subject of excellence in academic art. At the turn of the twentieth century, the animal became the vector of successive avant-gardes. Other artists saw them as subjects of study that could revolutionise aesthetic experience by taking an interest - like the Surrealists - in hybrid species and specimens of the animal kingdom that had previously been classified as monsters. Through these new subjects of observation, the evolution of a more humanist society is also revealed, driven by a complete questioning of the place of humans and animals within the living community.