The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, presided over a meeting of the Real Patronato del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, where the unanimous appointment of María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco as president was approved. She takes over from Ángeles González-Sinde, who has held the position since March 2020.
In addition to Jiménez-Blanco's appointment, the Patronato also welcomed eight new members: filmmaker, producer, and writer Tània Balló; Laura García-Lorca, president of the Federico García Lorca Foundation; artist Eva Lootz; architect Fuensanta Nieto; professor and researcher Concha Lomba; art critic Maria Josep Balsach; photographer Cristina de Middel; and María López-Fanjul, director of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias. Ángeles González-Sinde was unanimously named Honorary Patron.
During her six years as president, González-Sinde oversaw significant transformations at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, including an increase in staff, improvements to the museum's three locations, the acquisition of the Lafuente Archive, and an expansion of the museum's exhibition space. The Ministry of Culture expressed gratitude for her leadership during this period.
María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco holds a PhD in Art History from the Complutense University of Madrid, where she was awarded the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize in 1988 for her thesis on the history of the collections of the Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo. She later completed a master's degree in Art History and Museology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Since 1998, she has been a tenured professor of Art History at the Complutense University of Madrid, and served as the head of the Art History Department from 2018 to 2020. In 2017, she held the Chair of Spanish Culture and Civilisation at the King Juan Carlos Center at New York University. From 2013 to 2021, she was a member of the Real Patronato del Museo del Prado and its permanent committee, and previously authored the first official guide to the Museo del Prado.
Jiménez-Blanco has also served as the General Director of Fine Arts at the Ministry of Culture and Sport from 2020 to 2021. She has curated exhibitions for various institutions including Fundación Mapfre, Fundación Juan March, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, as well as collaborating with the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Her notable publications include 'Arte y Estado en la España del siglo XX' (1989), 'Arte Español en Nueva York' (2004), and 'Antes, desde y después del cubismo' (2017).
