In attendance: Fernando García Sánchez, president of Fundación Iberdrola España; Ramón Castresana, director of Fundación Iberdrola España; Rafael Orbegozo, Iberdrola’s presidential advisor; Miguel Zugaza, director of the Bilbao Bellas Artes Museum; Javier Novo, coordinator of Conservation and Research; and María José Ruiz-Ozaita, head of the museum’s Conservation and Restoration Department.

Since 2013, the Iberdrola-Museum Conservation and Restoration program has been responsible for maintaining the museum’s collection in an optimal state of conservation. To this end, a set of works in need of treatment is selected every year and they attend to different chronological nuclei and varied artistic techniques. In addition, in 2019 a new line of action was incorporated on works of art that, even though they do not belong to our collection, participate in temporary exhibitions. This has been the case of a selection of paintings belonging to private collections that have been included in the exhibitions Ameztoy and Masterpieces from the Valdés collection. Finally, the program expands its mission through the training of future professionals who, thanks to the Iberdrola-Bellas Artes Museum scholarship, develop their knowledge in the Conservation and Restoration Department.

In 2020, the program has followed these lines of action with the particularity that, in addition, recently acquired works that are now being presented to the public for the first time have been intervened on. This is the case of the paintings Landscape with Shepherd by Ignacio Iriarte -recently acquired thanks to the contribution of the Friends of the Museum-; Sopelana Beach and Landscape with Mountains by Juan de Barroeta; The Pasajes Factory by Gonzalo Chillida and Montmartre sous la neige by Jean-François Raffaëlli; and the prints by Joaquim Sunyer and Marta Cárdenas. In addition to these, there are well-known works from the collection signed by Ángel Larroque, Remigio Mendiburu and Pablo Milicua.

On the other hand, and with the future expansion of the museum on the horizon, a new mediation program has been launched to show the architectures of the museum and the artistic heritage that surrounds it through guided tours of the exterior. They are free with the purchase of a museum ticket and are held every weekend (Saturdays, 12:30 and 6:30 p.m.; Sundays, 12:30 p.m.; in Spanish and Basque on the last Sunday of each month; registration online or on the same day at the museum’s ticket office).