On 11 October 1997, Francisco Ayala participated in the Painting of the Month series.

In these conferences the Museum proposes to well known authors to explain in a conference their particular impression of a work of art from the Collection that each has selected. The lectures given are subsequently published in corresponding publications entitled Painting of the Month, that included the text of the participants and an illustration of the painting. Up to now the Museum has edited six editions.

The selected work was Metropolis by George Grosz, a choice which the author himself admitted was difficult given his great love of art and the "astonishing richness" of the Museum's collection. The celebration that year year of the exhibition George Grosz. The Berlin Years at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza helped Francisco Ayala to make his selection, along with the chance to share his own experience during his time in Berlin as a young man.
The result was one of the most moving talks given by any writer in the lengthy list of those who have taken part in this programme to date.

Here you can read part of the conference, published in Painting of the Month 2:

"(...) in my book Recuerdos y olvidos (Recollections and Forgettings) I described at some lenght my first sally into the wide world as a young man. In particular I emphasised the contrasts that the unique atmosphere which I encountered in what I foundly termed in those memoirs. 'My Berlin' offered to a young person escaping from a somewhat closed and cut off Spain. At that time Berlin was undoubtedly a city with its own character. There is no need for me to try to convey my impressions of the time, and I would simply like to transmit if possible the feeling that I had of having fallen into a unique universe; these were impressions that might be caused nost just on the recently arrived somewhat ingenue Spaniard that I was, but in fact on any foreigner. Berlin was a unique phenomenon. As I said before, this was the city where George Grosz lives and worked, and already sucessful man, a well-known figure whom I never had the chance to meet, nor did I try to do so. Some time later I found out that almost exactly coinciding whith my stay in Berlin between 1929 and 1930 the English poet of my age, Christopher Isherwood was also to be found there, and I would like to have met him...When I later read Farewell to Berlin I realised that we had been frecuenting the same places at the same time, and our pathes may have crossed as a consequence. Isherwood exquisite book was the basis dor a fine film, I am a camera of 1995, with Julie Harris, Laurence Harvey and Shelley Winters. In turn the film inspired the highly popular although uindobtedly inferior musical Cabaret of 1972 with Liza Minelli. I think it worth referring to these facts here as both Isherwood's literary output and its later echoes in film reflect more or less successfully that Berlin which was mine, and more importantly, George Grosz's."... Read de whole conference (text in Spanish) >> To celebrate this centenary, the Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales has organized a large programme with exhibitions, conferences, lectures series, documentary films and publications. Further information >>