For many giants of art history, past and present, the greatest reference has been - and continues to be - Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. Initially available in XXL format, this accessible edition presents his complete works in beautiful reproductions, including enlarged details and photographs of recently restored paintings.

Velázquez, Complete Works

A catalogue raisonné of the painter of painters

In the words of Manet, Velázquez was the greatest painter of all. Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece, Las Meninas, that he created 44 different versions. Francis Bacon painted a study of his portrait of Pope Innocent X. Monet and Renoir, Corot and Courbet, Degas and Dalí... for many giants of art history past and present, the greatest reference has been and remains Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660).
This accessible format edition, originally published in XXL size, presents Velazquez's complete oeuvre in beautiful reproductions, including enlarged details and photographs of recently restored paintings, in a joint initiative by TASCHEN and Wildenstein. The dazzling images are accompanied by José López-Rey's illuminating commentary on Velázquez's interest in human nature and the way his paintings give equal prominence to all kinds of characters, from an old woman frying eggs to a king or a pope, as well as the importance he placed on colour and light, an aspect that would so influence the Impressionists more than two centuries later.

About the authors

José López-Rey (1905-1991) studied at various European universities. After the overthrow of the Republican government in Spain, he settled in the United States, where he pursued a brilliant career as a teacher and researcher. An active member of the Foundation for Art Research, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The author of more than a hundred scientific studies and two books on Spanish painting, he was particularly noted for his research and publications on Goya, and above all on Velázquez, of whom he became a world-renowned specialist.

A graduate of the Ecole du Louvre, Odile Delendaf was a teacher at the Ecole du Louvre and then in charge of the Department of Paintings at the Louvre until 2007. She collaborated in numerous exhibitions of ancient painting. As a researcher at the Wildenstein Institute in Paris since 1990, she carried out studies on Castilian art of the Golden Age. She is the author, among other works, of Velázquez, peintre religieux (1993), and of the first catalogue raisonné and critical catalogue - produced under the auspices of the Wildenstein Institute - of the complete works of Francisco de Zurbarán and his workshop (2009/10).

Publisher: Taschen