After 14 years as its director, Fernando Benito says that the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia is an important reference point “that has to be cared for,” a “marvellous cultivated pearl” where the visitors can encounter,  “an almost unknown Valencia” through art, a true reflection of the city’s artistic history.

The extraordinary changes that the Museo de Bellas Artes has undergone coincides with your era as director. Do you feel satisfied? When I entered, in 1996, the museum’s trajectory was still to be defined and there were many paintings that weren’t even looked at or mentioned. I have been discovering the Museum’s uniqueness in terms of its contents because you couldn’t create a museum that didn’t exist. I think it is silly to compare it with the Prado or the Louvre. You have to adapt yourself to what you are and what you have. This museum doesn’t have its own budget, it doesn’t have a NIF, or even its own contractual power, as does IVAM or the Beneficencia. To be the director of the Museo de Bellas Artes is a little like being the director of a place that in reality is not very well defined.

Is the fact that the museum is the property of the State, managed by the Generalitat a drawback in terms of directing it? An administrative transference would improve things a lot, but they don’t want to change the structure. It would have to be the product of local political will, because Madrid has other things to think about - the Museo de Mérida, the one in Segovia...

Is it a truly Valencian museum? The content of this Valencia’s museum isn’t easy. You can’t find other museums like it, because it has historical content tied to what the city was, a content that cannot be bought at auctions. There are no Zurbarán’s because Zurbarán never came to Valencia. The Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia possesses the historical remains of the city. Valencia is also a city with an Academia de Bellas Artes, and has always been very “artistic”, with many painters and Fine Arts teachers, and a strong Fine Arts current. Valencians have left their imprint, resulting in the museum’s strong presence, a memory of certain moments of a city very complete and defined in the 19th century. It is that of the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, that of the World Exposition.

Is there competition between museums in Valencia? Valencia has changed a lot. At one time, there was only this museum, but then one day IVAM appeared, wanting to become a reference point in Spain. Many fronts have opened up in Valencia and they all have to be maintained, but there isn’t enough money.

What are your best moments as a director? The architectural set of Ambassador Vich’s palace, which I did alone, against everyone. Camps knew me and knew that I like this project, and fortunately, as he was already president, he supported it. The cataloguing of the Museum, in its entirety, has been very difficult. We have come across many painters and discoveries. Which is why we created a guide as its backbone, making sense of the museum, so that people can discover the museum’s complete discourse, everything that is hung here, and know how and why  it its hung. The guide that we published is a bit a reflection on all of this, what the museum is.

Will your replacement have it a lot easier? My replacement won’t find it as I found it. A lot of progress has been made. We researched everything and know the provenance of every piece. In this museum there are three parts, that which comes from the Ecclesiastical Confiscations , from the State, the extremely important Orts-Bosch collection, the most important in Valencia, which I have been able to bring here rather than have another museum built for it. It has given the museum another dimension. The third is that of the Academia, which has the more modern paintings. The city of Valencia is very rich in its history and very superficial in the study of ancient values. We are always going for modern things. We like the new and people don’t pay attention to the old.