Estrella de Diego Otero

Estrella de Diego is an essayist, a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid for the last thirty years and a full member of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. She has held the King Juan Carlos I Chair of Spanish Culture and Civilization (NYU), the 13th Luis Ángel Arango International Chair of Art (Banco de la República de Bogotá) and has been awarded with the Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Professorship for 2017-2018.

De Diego has been a Fulbright scholar at NYU, an advisory committee member of the Collegium for Advanced Studies at Helsinki University and a patron of the Fundación Carolina. She is also a patron of the Academy of Fine Arts of Spain, the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía and the Instituto Cervantes. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the BIENALSUR Sur Buenos Aires (MUNTREF), the Norman Foster Foundation, the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard and the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA). She has recently been appointed member of the Museo del Prado Board of Trustees.

She has been a visiting or guest professor at numerous institutions and museums such as Saint Martin's London; National University of Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires; University of Oxford; Externado Bogotá; University of Illinois; University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); MoMA, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; São Paulo Art Biennial; University of Paris 8; University of Strasbourg; Sorbonne, Paris; Banco de la República, Bogotá; Museo del Prado; Museo Nacional Reina Sofía (MNCARS); São Paulo Biennial Foundation; Oiticica Foundation; Thyssen Foundation; La Caixa Foundation; Museo Nacional Reina Sofía; Biblioteca Nacional de España; Mapfre Foundation...

She is the author of many books and research papers. Her books and essays include La mujer y la pintura en la España del siglo XIX (Madrid, Cátedra, 1987, 2009), The Sexed Androgyne: Eternal Ideals, New Gender Strategies (Madrid, Visor, 1992), Tristísimo Warhol (Madrid, Siruela, 1999), “Representing Representation. Reading Las Meninas, Again”, in Velázquez's Las Meninas (Cambridge University Press, 2003), Querida Gala (Madrid, Espasa, 2003), Travesías por la incertidumbre (Barcelona, Seix Barral, 2007), Maruja Mallo (Madrid, Mapfre, 2008), Contra el mapa (Siruela, 2008), “Währenddessen. Der Besuch von Struth in the Prado Museum”, (Munich, Schirmer / Mosel, 2009); No soy yo: Autobiografía, performance y los nuevos espectadores (Madrid, Siruela, 2011), “La coleccionista de historias”, Cristina Iglesias. Metonimia, MNCARS, Madrid (2013), “At Home: That in the Night”, Guillermo Kuitka. Philosophy for Princesses. Works 1980-2013, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2014), “El futuro y otros mitos modernos”, Cristina Iglesias / Thomas Struth. Constructions of the imagination, Ivorypress (2014), “Out There, “Return to the Native Land: The Invention of the Origin”, Joaquín Torres García. The Arcadian Modern (MoMA 2015), Sigue Lloviendo. Lluvia”, Alberto Greco. ¡Qué grande sos!,  Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires (2016), Ofter Gebrauchsanleitung. Sacrifices: Instructions for Use, La Ribot. Occupatiooon!, Berlin, (2017). She has been the director of the Mínima collection of Editorial Siruela and is an advisor of the publishing company Cátedra. She has been a member of the Editorial or Academic Board of Revista de Occidente, La balsa de la Medusa, Art Press, Reales Sitios, Arbor and Ars Longa.

She has curated exhibitions such as the Spanish representation at the 22 São Paulo Art Biennial (1994) and at the 49 Venice Biennale (2001); Warhol on Warhol (La Casa Encendida, 2007) and Sophie Taueber-Arp (Museo Picasso Málaga, 2009). Her latest exhibitions include Anna Bella Geiger, Physical and Human Geography (CAAC, La Casa Encendida, MUNTREF Buenos Aires), Liliana Porter (Artium), Campo a través. Arte colombiano en la colección del Banco de la República (Community of Madrid), Gala Salvador Dalí. A Room of One’s Own in Púbol (MNAC) or Berenice Abbott. Portraits of modernity (Mapfre, 2019)

She has been awarded the 11th Prize for Journalism on Reading from the Germán Sánchez Ruipérez Foundation and has received the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts for her work as a writer and researcher. She is a regular columnist for the newspaper El País.