7. Nuestra Casa At The Hispanic Museum & Library
This spring, the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in Washington Heights will present Nuestra Casa: Rediscovering the Treasures of The Hispanic Society Museum & Library in its newly renovated exhibition space in the East Building Gallery, revealing hidden gems from the museum’s expansive collection of more than 750,000 objects. These objects help to illustrate the Museum’s wide array of art, literature, and history of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, ranging in origin from Spain and Mexico to Puerto Rico in chronological order from the 10th through 20th centuries. Example pieces on display include Goya’s Duchess of Alba, Diego Valazquez’s Portrait of a Little Girl, the 19th-century watercolors of Pancho Fierro. and Miguel Viladrich Vila’s The Man from Montevideo, which illustrates the racial diversity of colonial Latin America.
At the same time, Nuestra Casa also aims to highlight how the museum’s collection extends beyond the classic artwork of El Greco, Goya, and Sorolla to include masterpieces by relatively unknown Latin American artists, at times still unidentified, and who have previously received little recognition. Curated by Dr. Madeleine Haddon, Nuestra Casa represents the need for traditional art historical and aesthetic hierarchies to be reevaluated to make way for a new era of artistic expression that incorporates the growing diverse populations which utilize the city’s public institutions. Nuestra Casa can be viewed until April 17, 2022.
