Ad Reinhardt was an avid world traveler and visited Spain four times in his lifetime. These visits to Spain took place during Reinhardt’s extensive trips abroad in 1952, 1954, 1960, and 1967. For Reinhardt, travel was an opportunity to enrich his knowledge as both an artist and a professor of art and art history, through the experience of seeing the great works of art history, visiting cultural landmarks, museums, and galleries, and taking photographs for his slide collection. The time Reinhardt spent in Spain, as in other destinations he visited, was precious. As documented in his correspondence and travel journals, Reinhardt made every effort to see what he wanted to see; as a result, the experience of travel could be at once stimulating and revelatory, melancholy and exhausting.
Among the archival holdings of the Ad Reinhardt Foundation are an extensive collection of Reinhardt's letters and postcards to his family and his original travel journals, which provide valuable insight into what Reinhardt saw, experienced, and observed when visiting a particular place. Digitized archival materials related to his travels to Spain can be viewed below.
1952
Reinhardt’s first visit to Spain took place in July 1952, when he stopped in Girona and Barcelona during an extensive, two-month trip to Europe. While his time in Spain was short on this trip, just two full days, Reinhardt visited many sites in and around Barcelona, including churches in Tarassa, the Monastery of San Cugat de Vallès, The Church of San Pablo de Campo, The National Palace Museum, and examples of Gaudí’s architecture. Reinhardt’s 1952 travel journal provides a daily account of this trip. See here for the page detailing his journey from the southwest of France into northeastern Spain on July 25, 1952; the places he visited on July 26–27; and his departure from Spain on July 28. See here for Reinhardt’s hand-drawn map from his travel journal of his itinerary in France and Spain. See here for postcards to his wife, Rita from this trip.
1954
In May 1954, while on sabbatical from Brooklyn College, Reinhardt embarked on a five-week trip to Europe and Greece. Staying in Madrid for six full days, Reinhardt had time to visit the Prado Museum twice, as well as the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo. He also took an all-day Thomas Cook tour of El Escorial, and a day trip to Toledo. See here for Reinhardt’s travel journal pages for his May 22–29, 1954 stay in Northern Spain. See here for postcards and letters to his wife, Rita, and young daughter, Anna from this trip.
1960
In June 1960 Reinhardt travelled to Paris to install his solo show Mysticisme athée at Galerie Iris Clert. After the opening of his Paris show, he flew to Madrid and visited the Prado museum, followed by a five-day Thomas Cook bus tour of Madrid, Córdoba, Sevilla, and Granada. While Reinhardt did not keep a travel journal for this 3-week trip, correspondence to his wife, Rita, and daughter, Anna, provides many key details. In letters to Rita he indicates that taking the Cook’s tour was the best way to ensure that he would see all that he wanted to see of Moorish Spain. See here for postcards and letters to his wife, Rita, and daughter, Anna from this trip. See here for Reinhardt's passport pages showing stamps from this trip.
1967
Reinhardt’s last visit to Spain was a quick one. Traveling on the ocean liner SS Leonardo da Vinci from Naples back home to New York, he stopped in Barcelona for the day on July 11, 1967. While Reinhardt did not keep a travel journal for this trip, he wrote several postcards to his wife and daughter documenting this stop. While he mentions spending the whole day in Barcelona, he does not describe how he spent his time on this visit.
