smithsonian latino art collections - Smithsonian Latino Center

1848: New Border, New Nation/Una Frontera Nueva, Una Nación Nueva in commemoration of the
sesquicentennial of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. One of the most anticipated
exhibitions of the period was A Collector’s Vision of Puerto Rico featuring the recently acquired Vidal
Collection in the summer of 1998. The Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies developed a
series of initiatives around the U.S-Mexico Border including Talleres de la Frontera workshops for
teachers and an educational set Borders and Identity as well as featuring The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo
Basin during the 1998 Folklife Festival on the National Mall.
In New York, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum put together Arquitectonica: The
Times Square Project in February-May 1998 and the George Gustav Heye Center presented The Art of
Being Kuna: Layers of Meaning among the Kuna of Panama in September 1998-March 1999. The
Archives of American Art New York’s Office featured El Movimiento: Selections from the Tomas Ybarra-
Frausto Research Material in Chicano Art in February-May, 1998. Latino artworks and objects were
included in the 1996 traveling exhibition America’s Smithsonian among them Cesar Chavez’s jacket,
Emanuel Martinez’s altar.
In Panama, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute organized the traveling exhibition Coral
Reefs: Caribbean Connections/Arecifes coralinos: conecciones caribeñas in 1996-1997 which traveled to
Miami, Washington, DC, Honduras and Jamaica. It also organized the local exhibition Vida y costumbres
de un pueblo precolombino. The International Gallery of the Ripley Center presented American Voices:
Latino Photographers in the United States, which was organized by FotoFest in Houston in May 1997 as
well as The Art and Life of Jack Delano in 1998. The National Air and Space Museum presented in 1998
Arriba! The History of Flight in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean.
The Office of the Counselor to the Secretary for Community Affairs and Special Projects also
developed a series of exhibitions as well as outreach programs. In collaboration with the Inter-American
Development Bank it organized in 1996 Expeditions: 150 Years of Smithsonian Research in Latin America,
which was presented at the Bank’s Cultural Center. The Office also joined the National Anthropological
Archives to organize the traveling exhibition Beyond the Maine: Imaging the New Empire, which
featured photographs by Charles Edward Doty and Helen Hamilton Gardiner.
The Center for Museum Studies in collaboration with IUPLR offered the Graduate Seminar on
Qualitative Research during the summers of 1994-1998 and in addition secured funding in the amount
of $25,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1997 for its programs and a larger grant of $250,000 for
humanities fellowships in Latino Culture in a National Museum Context with residencies at the National
Museum of American Art and the Archives of American Art in 1998-1999.
Acquisitions during the years 1995-1998 also increased with the Teodoro Vidal gift of Puerto
Rican artworks, objects and artifacts to NMAH and NMAA. This Puerto Rican collection was
complemented with the donation of 378 posters created by the Division de Educacion a la Comunidad
(DIVEDCO) on May 19, 1997 by the Archivo General de Puerto Rico through Nelly V. Cruz Rodriguez. 87
Also in 1997, the Rosenak Collection of Folk Life at NMAA added works by artists Tobias Anaya, Felipe
Benito Archuleta, Leroy Archuleta, Frank Brito, Nicholas Herrera, George Lopez, Gregorio Marzan, José
Mondragón, Enrique Rendon and Horacio Valdez to the permanent collection.
A New Era, The Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives
With the opening of the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives on August 10, 1998 at the
Smithsonian Castle with Dr. Refugio I. Rochin as its founding director, the Institution entered a new
stage in its history with U.S. Latinos. The Center’s mission, “to advance and disseminate knowledge and
understanding of the Latino contributions to U.S. History, art, music, culture and science,” It stated its
87 Puerto Rico Division of Community Education Poster Collection, 1940-1990. Collection Finding Aid. Provenance.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
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