(Above) Francisco de Goya, Disparate de Miedo (Folly of Fear) (1864). © Manchester City Galleries
Exhibition: Fantasies, Follies and Disasters: The Prints of Francisco de Goya, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, until February 2010
Selected highlights from one of the world's most important collections of Goya etchings are now on show at Manchester Art Gallery. It is the first time they have been seen together for over 20 years.
The 30 prints are taken from three of the artist's most celebrated series of graphic works: Los Caprichos (The Fantasies), Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War) and Los Disparates (The Follies).
Francisco de Goya, Disparate Allegre (Merry Folly) (1864). © Manchester City Galleries
They display a dark and satirical vision of late 18th century Spanish society that was too controversial for publication at the time. Goya produced his etchings in private and used them to attack the church and draw attention to the miseries of war.
Perhaps the most iconic print on display is The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, in which demonic creatures take flight from the brow of a sleeping artist.
Disparate de Carnabal (Carnival Folly) (1864). © Manchester City Galleries
Such a nightmarish imagination did not prevent the Spanish painter from becoming one of the most esteemed and influential figures of his day. Goya was court painter to King Charles IV and he enjoyed a lucrative career in portraiture.
As the show demonstrates, this was an artist with differing sides to his personality, who grew increasingly introspective after a bout of illness left him deaf in 1792.
Francisco de Goya, Tragala Perro (Swallow it, Dog) (1799). © Manchester City Galleries
The gallery's full collection of Goya etchings stretches to over 90 rare first editions, purchased in the early 1980s from the estate of a leading expert on the artist, Tomás Harris.
Manchester City Council Culture and Leisure spokesman Mike Amesbury predicted the show would prove as popular as the gallery's successful Leonardo da Vinci exhibition earlier this year.
"This is another fabulous opportunity to see artworks by one of the great masters for free," he said. A second show of Goya etchings will follow early next year.
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