MUSEOS

Ángel Orensanz and Serrablo Popular Arts Museum
Julio Gavín-Larrés Castle Museum of Drawing

CENTROS DE INTERPRETACIÓN

Biescas Tower
Pitch Interpretive Centre in Yésero
La Dolores Flour Mill
La Vida Pastoril
Pyrenees Transhumance Photography Centre
Sacred Art Exhibition
Leoncio Mairal Exhibition Centre
Glacier Interpretive Centre
Serrablo Churches Interpretive Centre in Lárrede

Ángel Orensanz y Serrablo Popular Arts Museum – Museo Ángel Orensanz y Artes Populares del Serrablo

Museo Angel Orensanz y Artes Populares

by Sabiñánigo Town Hall at its plenary session on 4th January 1978. It was opened in August 1979 and comprises two founding collections: the Ángel Orensanz collection donated, along with the building, by the artist; and the Amigos de Serrablo association’s collection, a comprehensive collection of traditional craftwork from the Serrablo area.

The Museum is under the remit of Sabiñánigo Town Hall who maintains and promotes it, and in doing so provides a service to society, an opportunity for people either to study or enjoy the works, according to how they respond when they contemplate this material witness of mankind and mankind’s social and cultural environment.

The Museum’s guiding philosophy is that universal perspectives come from ancient local culture; the idea of a living museum is a permanent aim is part of this perspective. The Museum is the starting point for the Serrablo Churches Route, as well as the starting point for several trails, which are signposted and that run through the countryside and through some abandoned villages in the area. Because of this, and because the Museum is in a building that is representative of Pyrenean vernacular architecture, this centre can be considered an ethnological museum, and of course it also has ethnobotanical garden.

Despite being a global ethnological museum, a number of sections in the Museum are worth highlighting: agriculture, herding, textiles, childhood, local medicine, traditional Pyrenean music, local religious expression and processions, Julio Gavín’s ethnological drawing and vernacular architecture.

These sections are complemented by an audio-visual room and a specialised library named after the renowned ethnologist, Rafael Andolz Canela, as well as a room dedicated to the work of the sculptor Ángel Orensanz. There are two more rooms in the Museum, on the anthropological work of Julio Caro Baroja and Antonio Beltrán Martínez.

In addition, the Museum is hub of cultural activity, in particular it is known for its Friday night talks in December, las Beiladas. These are warm-hearted discussions around the fire where experts discuss the past and the present. Life also breathes into the Museum via the International Prize for Sculpture Ángel Orensanz, awarded every two years; a book collection, A Lazena de yaya, co-published with the Institute of Altoargonese Studies (Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses); and the anthropological research carried out by a team of volunteers.

For more information see the Museum’s blog.  Blog del Museo