Evaristo Valle Museum

The Evaristo Valle Museum, declared a B.I.C. (Bien de Interés Cultural). (Asset of Cultural Interest) and constituted in 1981 as a Cultural Foundation, is the result of the affection and generosity of María Rodríguez del Valle - the painter's niece - who since his death in 1951 has treasured with admirable zeal the artist's works, personal objects and documents that today make up the museum's collection, to which she added an endowment and her residence with two buildings in Somió (Gijón/Xixón): one of them was built expressly for the museum in 1971, the other is an old mansion from the end of the 19th century, renovated in 1942 and later adapted to its new purpose.

Both buildings are set in splendid historic gardens, a mixture of French and English gardening, which, covering more than 16,000 square metres, still conserve, after a century, a good part of the layout, ornamental elements and many of the 120 different species of trees and shrubs, most of which are native to the area.

The museum thus forms an incomparable setting which, charged with melancholy, is in perfect harmony with both the work and personality of Evaristo Valle and that of its founder. In the gardens there are around fifty contemporary art sculptures and a space dedicated to Bonsai.

Apart from the temporary exhibitions, educational and musical activities, the museum permanently exhibits more than a hundred works by Evaristo Valle, which, organised chronologically, thematically or technically, allow us to approach his deep, varied and rich legacy of drawings and paintings.
Also on display, together with the reconstruction of his studio, is the evocative collection of shells inherited by the painter from his father.

Consult the Evaristo Valle's exhibitions here