of
Bordeaux was to welcome young French researchers. In 1916,
Charles-Marie
Widor, permanent secretary of the Academy of Fine-Arts, expressed the
wish
that French artists came to Spain to complete their formation just as
they
had done at "Villa Medicis" in Rome.
The idea appealed to King Alphonse XIII. He personally chose a 20,000 sq. meters parcel of land which was to be given to France on condition that a residence was built for the use of artists and researchers. The Palace was called "The Casa de Velázquez" because, according to the legend, it was in that very place, in front of the "Sierra de Guadarrama", that the painter used to place his easel.
The first buildings were inaugurated in 1928 and completed in 1935. One year later, the Spanish Civil War broke out. The "Casa" was located on the front line; On November 20th 1936, during the battle of Madrid, it was burnt to ashes. Artists and students first settled in Fès, in Marocco, then came back to Madrid in 1940. They stayed in a hotel on Serrano street until the reconstruction of the "Casa" in 1958.
The "Casa de Velázquez" reopened to its members and researchers in 1959 and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1979 in presence of her Majesty Doña Sofia and Madame Anne-Aymone Giscard D'Estaing.
The directors of the "Casa de
Velázquez"
have been: Pierre Paris, François Dumas, Maurice Legendre,
Henri
Terrasse, François Chevalier, Didier Ozanam, Joseph Pérez,
Jean
Canavaggio and Gérard
Chastagnaret.