Art News

McNay Art Museum in San Antonio presents newly authenticated El Greco painting

SAN ANTONIO, TX.- An outlier among Marion Koogler McNay’s collection, El Greco’s Head of Christ was an unusual purchase for a collector focused on modern art. More than likely, this acquisition reflects Mrs. McNay’s awareness of works assembled by Marjorie and Duncan Phillips, which became Washington, DC’s famed Phillips Collection. They also acquired an El Greco as their unique old master painting for an otherwise modern collection. Over the years since the McNay opened in 1954, scholarship on the Greek painter Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco, progressed steadily. Originally accepted as El Greco’s work, the museum’s painting in recent decades was presumed a studio version or later copy of another work by the master. When the McNay’s director visited the Metropolitan Museum