DALLAS, TX.- The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University will celebrate its 50th Anniversary in 2015 with special exhibitions of art works never seen in the U.S., as well as a wide variety of offerings from its distinguished permanent collection.

“The 50th anniversary represents a landmark moment in time for the Meadows Museum, and we’re delighted to share this special anniversary with a series of remarkable exhibitions,” said Mark A. Roglán, the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum and Centennial Chair, Meadows School of the Arts, SMU.

The museum’s celebration coincides with the 100th Anniversary of SMU’s opening in the 1915.

Highlights of the year-long celebration of the Meadows’ 50th Anniversary include:

The Abelló Collection: A Modern Taste for European Masters (April 18 – Aug. 2, 2015)
The Meadows presents the first exhibition in the U.S. of paintings from the collection of Juan Abelló, one of the world’s top collectors. The Abelló Collection: A Modern Taste for European Masters will feature approximately 70 paintings spanning the 15th to the 20th centuries -- including works by such Spanish masters as El Greco, Jusepe de Ribera, Francisco Goya, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso, as well as by other European artists including Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, and Mark Rothko, among others. The exhibition features Francis Bacon’s Triptych 1983, one of the artist’s final works in this iconic format. The Abelló Collection joins the Meadows’ ongoing series of international partnerships that are bringing Spanish masterworks to the U.S.

Treasures from the House of Alba: 500 Years of Art and Collecting (Sept. 4, 2015 – Jan. 3, 2016)
Masterworks from the Alba collection-- one of the oldest and most significant private collections of European art in the world -- will be exhibited for the first time in the U.S. The exhibition features more than 100 paintings, prints and drawings, tapestries and decorative objects, as well as historic documents spanning 500 years of Western history. Highlights include paintings by Francisco de Goya, Peter Paul Rubens, and Pierre Auguste Renoir; one of Christopher Columbus’ original logbooks, which features the first map of the New World as drawn by Columbus during his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean; and The Bible of the House of Alba, an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript and one of the earliest known translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into a Romance language.

Other high points of the Meadows Museum’s 50th Anniversary Year include: Goya: A Lifetime of Graphic Invention (Sept. 21, 2014 – March 1, 2015): Presenting nearly 300 works from Francisco de Goya’s printed oeuvre, the exhibition will offer visitors the rare opportunity to simultaneously view complete first edition sets of Goya’s four major print series.

H.O. Robertson: A Self-Taught Texas Regionalist (Nov. 9, 2014 – March 1, 2015): Celebrating a recent gift by the artist’s family to SMU of paintings and works on paper depicting life in Texas during the Great Depression.

Goya: A Conversation – Ambassador Loan from the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Feb. 1 – May 3, 2015): The Meadows Museum hosts the Louvre’s Portrait of Fernando Guillemardet (1798) by Goya in dialogue with its own Portrait of Richard Worsam Meade (1815) by Vicente López y Portaña.

Human/nature. The Ridiculous and Sublime: Recent Works by John Alexander (March 22 – June 28, 2015): Featuring recent works by John Alexander, an SMU graduate who is a noted artist, and whose early inspiration was fostered by the Museum’s collection of Goya prints.

The Meadows Collects: 50 Years of Spanish Art in Texas (April 18 – Aug. 2, 2015): This extensive timeline will include archival material, photographs, and works of art to document the 50-year history of the museum.

Infanta Margarita in a Blue Dress: A Masterwork by Velázquez from Vienna (July 25 – Nov. 1, 2015): The Museum hosts the Kunsthistorisches’ Portrait of the Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress (1659) by Velázquez.