Museo Mateo Hernández

The museum occupies the space where the nave of the church of San Gil was located, now demolished and converted into an exempt building. It houses the work of Bejarano sculptor Mateo Hernández, belonging to the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART 'REINA SOFÍA'.

Mateo defended his direct carving throughout his life, opposing the academicism that prevailed in Spain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which advocated wood carving, modeling and casting in bronze, calling it "primitive". technique of directly carving the stone. Defending himself of those attacks to his work he traveled to Paris, where he developed his work and from where he never returned. He achieved great success all over the world and always maintained his convictions, that the carving on stone, with the hammer and the chisel, did not allow mistakes, while the rest could always be corrected.

His works are now in museums as important as the Metropolitan of New York and the Reina Sofía in Madrid, as well as in private collections around the world. But the most important collection can be admired in Béjar, one of the most valuable assets that the city has.