Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were visiting Cáceres today to inaugurate the new building of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Helga de Alvear Foundation at the foundation’s Visual Arts Center.
The couple was welcomed by the Museum authorities.
The “Fundación Helga de Alvear” is a non-profit, autonomous, and independently managed cultural entity, created on November 29, 2006. Its constitution responds to Helga de Alvear’s desire to share her collection with society and to the interest of several public institutions from Extremadura to provide Cáceres with a center for research, dissemination, and education in the field of contemporary visual creation.
The royal couple began the visit with the explanations of the architect, Emilio Tuñón, and the member of the Board of Trustees of the “Helga de Alvear Foundation”, José María Viñuela while learning about the permanent exhibition of the Museum.
Felipe discovered a commemorative plaque marking this inauguration ceremony.
This expansion work of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the “Helga de Alvear Foundation” has been co-financed 50 percent by the Junta de Extremadura and the German gallery owner and vice president of the Foundation Board, Helga de Alvear, who has donated all her collection to the region.
Helga de Alvear (born 1936) is an art collector. She was born in the city of Kirn/Nahe (Rheinland-Pfalz), Germany, in 1936. She decided a long time ago to share her collection with society and make it the frame of reference for a project aimed at dissemination, production, research, and education related to contemporary visual creation.
The center will be a benchmark for contemporary art that will house the 3,000 works that make up the collection. This construction is the Spanish candidate in the “Mies Van de Rohe 2021” European Architecture Awards.
Felipe and Letizia toured the building and see the room dedicated to the “Caprichos de Goya” and the three floors of a new building with 5,000 square meters that are added to the 3,000 already existing plus a garden area.
The royal couple during the tour of the building.
The “Helga de Alvear Foundation” works with an aim to disseminate the Helga de Alvear collection through exhibitions, exchanges, publications, and computer media to promote, encourage, and investigate the production of the visual arts of our time in all aspects related to them.
The working routine of the foundation is to establish the operating criteria of the Cáceres Visual Arts Center, manage it and schedule its activities and preserve the collection’s funds, increase them in accordance with principles of universality, openness to experimentation, and the variety of the most significant languages of artistic activity at all times.
King Felipe and Queen Letizia signed the Museum’s Book of Honor and had a brief meeting with the attendees before leaving.
Now to the style of the day, Queen Letizia of Spain wore a white Felipe Varela tweed dress. The white fitted tweed dress features a notched collar, silver snap button bodice, and patch pockets at the front.
Letizia premiered the dress in October 2017 during her visit to the city of Valencia. The dress made a comeback when she welcomed the Colombian President and First Lady at Royal Palace in May 2018. She also wore the dress during the US visit in 2018.
Queen Letizia of Spain paired the dress with a black skinny leather belt.
She was wearing her black Manolo Blahnik Snakeskin pumps.
Letizia was carrying her Nina Ricci Marche Chaine Shoulder bag
She wore her gold bamboo hoop earrings and
Karen Hallam signature ring.
