The exhibition includes a total of 40 pieces, among which are the outstanding works, The Apostles, his famous series of the twelve apostles presided over by The Saviour, the two Blessed Virgins painted by the artist (the Oballe Blessed Virgin, for the parish of San Nicolás de Bari, and The  Blessed Virgin and Saint John, for the church of Saint Vincent), The Veronica, from the parish of Santa Leocadia, and the Complete Works of Xenophon annotated by El Greco, from the library of the Marquis de la Vega Inclán. The exhibition also offers an oil on board of a crucified Christ of the Venetian school, unseen until now.

Works by other artists – Luis Tristán, Martínez del Mazo, Sorolla and others – complete the exhibition, along with a documentary archive on many of the paintings and their original locations, and a collection of photographs taken by Mariano Moreno, who came to have the best documentary archive on the Cretan’s paintings; aside from the new information which they provide, the great artistic merit of the images cannot be overlooked. Moreno is considered to be one of the pioneers of the Spanish art archive.

Curated by Ana Carmen Lavín, the exhibition focuses on the moment in history when the ‘redicovery’ of El Greco took place, in 1908, by Bartolomé Cossío, a lecturer at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Teaching Institute). Also, and in Lavín’s own words, 1900 El Greco reveals ‘the close relationship between the Cretan artist and the imperial city of Toledo’, where, in its Jewish quarter, the El Greco House Museum is located today.

‘Domenikos Theotokopoulos, 1990 El Greco’ came about, to some extent, due to the temporary closure of the El Greco Museum in Toledo, to complete the modernisation of its facilities begun in 2006. These circumstances meant a unique opportunity to show people everywhere the depth of El Greco’s work and its inherent relationship with the city of Toledo, at a time when the Cretan is the object of renewed interest from scholars and museums of all kinds.

Domenikos Theotokopoulos (Candia, 1541 – Toledo, 1614), known as El Greco, was one of the great painters of the end of the Renaissance. After living in Crete and Italy, the artist settled in Toledo in 1577, the city which would bear privileged witness to his work until his death. The El Greco Museum House which stands there, founded on the initiative of the Marquis de la Vega Inclán at the beginning of the 20th century, today houses an exceptional collection of portraits (including those of the Covarrubias brothers), along with The Tears of Saint Peter, bought by the Marquis on the private market, and the aforementioned series, The Apostles.

The exhibition has been organised by the State Society for Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX), the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha and BOZAR, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.