The Valencian Provincial Council and the Universitat de València present this exhibition, which is framed within the programme ‘The Provincial Council of regions’ and is the result of a research process of the heritage fund of the Universitat de València, which has taken more than a year.

The Valencian Provincial Council has a wide artistic heritage consisting of more than 4.500 art works, including paintings, drawings, sculptures and engravings.

These funds have been object of research throughout more than a year by a group of professors of the Universitat de València, headed by the full university professor of Art History, Rafael Gil, the dean of the Faculty of Geography and History, Ester Alba, and the Department of Art History, professors Felipe Jerez, María José López Terrada and Mireia Ferrer.

The result of this huge work is compiled at the exhibition ‘Memory of Modernity’, a showing consisting of 125 works that go through the Valencian art history, painting and sculpture, from gothic to baroque, paying special attention to the works of the 19th and 20th centuries, among which the works by Reixachs, Ribalta, Vicente López, Sorolla, Pinazo, Benlliure, as well as by Crònica team, Andreu Alfaro, Artur Heras, Carmen Calvo and Miquel Navarro, among others, stand out.

Framed within the programme ‘The Provincial Council of regions’, it aims at making the heritage funds of the council at Valencian regions known. The showing, from which an illustrated catalogue with explicative texts regarding these works will be published, was presented on Thursday 18 May at the seat of the Valencian Provincial Council in a ceremony that was attended by the president of the Provincial Council, Jorge Rodríguez, the principal of the Universitat de València, Esteban Morcillo, the councillor of general management and heritage of the Provincial Council, José Ruíz, and the curator of the exhibition, the full university professor Rafael Gil Salinas.

Professor Gil Salinas pointed out at the presentation that thanks to the study of this heritage fund of the Provincial Council, the Valencian art history can be rewritten, while both the principal of the Universitat and the president of the Provincial Council emphasised the importance of the work carried out by the researchers of the Universitat de València and the effort put by the Provincial Council in order to make this rich heritage available for everyone in Valencian regions.

The Universitat de València and the Provincial Council concur in the attempt of invigorating our regions and contributing to development, as pointed out by the principal Esteban Morcillo, who highlighted that in the last years the effort put by the Universitat de València in the cooperation with local public administrations, associations and the provincial council has been a part of the objectives set by the university government, leaded from the Office of the Vice-Principal for Territorial Projection and Participation by professor Jorge Hermosilla.

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