The Hispanic Society Museum & Library in Washington Heights is the city’s primary institution and reference library dedicated solely to the preservation, study, understanding, exhibition, and enjoyment of arts and cultures of Portuguese- and Spanish- speaking countries and communities. The Museum was founded in 1904 by Archer M. Huntington, and it has acquired works by leading painters like Velázquez and Orozco, sculptors like Pedro de Mena and Luisa Roldán, and masters of decorative arts. The Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books has among the most extensive collection outside Spain, open to the public by appointment only.
On April 2 at 2:30 p.m., joined Untapped New York on a tour of “Nuestra Casa: Rediscovering the Treasures of The Hispanic Society Museum & Library” at the East Building Gallery. The 45-minute tour will be led by Maria Barney of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library Education Team. See artworks and artifacts spanning over a millennium from both masters and relatively less recognized artists. View hidden gems from the museum’s over 750,000 objects. Learn more about the curation and reassessment process behind the diverse exhibition. This event is free for Untapped New York Insiders. If you’re not a member, join now (and get your first month free with the code JOINUS).
Nuestra Casa Exhibit at the Hispanic Society Museum
The exhibition, which features hidden gems of the museum’s over 750,000 objects, was curated by Dr. Madeleine Haddon. Haddon most recently worked as a curatorial assistant for The Museum of Modern Art’s recent exhibition in New York City Henri Matisse: The Red Studio. The exhibition “Nuestra Casa” will be on display until April 17, 2022.
During the museum’s recent renovation, some of these works toured the world at sites like the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid and the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Many of these objects will come home for the first time in five years before heading to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Academy of Art in London. The exhibit extends beyond the artwork of El Greco, Goya, and Sorolla, including masterpieces within a range of mediums by relatively unknown and unrecognized Latin American artists.
“Nuestra Casa only scratches the surface in terms of the breadth of treasures that visitors will be able to come to the HSM&L to see once the museum fully reopens its doors,” Haddon said. “Visitors will leave with an understanding of the HSM&L as the most significant collection in the United States in which to encounter and learn about the rich and diverse cultural heritage of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world.”
Works featured in Nuestra Casa, many of which had not been featured regularly at the Museum, range in origin from Spain and Mexico to Puerto Rico and Peru, dating from the 10th to 20th centuries. These works include the 19th-century watercolors of Pancho Fierro, Miguel Viladrich Vilá’s The Man from Montevideo (1923-5), Francisco de Goya’s Duchess of Alba (1797), and Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of a Little Girl (c. 1638-42). These works will be exhibited alongside those by more obscure Latin American artists such as José Augustín Arrieta and José Campeche y Jordán.
On April 2 at 2:30 p.m., joined Untapped New York on a tour of “Nuestra Casa: Rediscovering the Treasures of The Hispanic Society Museum & Library” at the East Building Gallery. This event is free for Untapped New York Insiders. If you’re not a member, join now (and get your first month free with the code JOINUS).
Nuestra Casa Exhibit at the Hispanic Society Museum
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