smithsonian latino art collections - Smithsonian Latino Center

additional works by Fernando Botero, Wilfredo Lam, Francisco Corzas, Helen Escobedo, Manuel
Felguerez, Alberto Navarro, Nesser, José Clemente Orozco, Vicente Rojo, Kazuya Sakai, David Alfaro
Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo. In the occasion of the ground breaking ceremony for the new museum
and sculpture garden, Joseph Hirshhorn in his address stated: “…it is an honor for me to give my art
collection to the people of the United States. I think it is a small repayment for what this great nation
has done for me and or others like me who arrived here as immigrants…What I have accomplished here
in the United States, I could not accomplish anywhere in the world.” 14
In addition to the acquisition of the coveted Hirshhorn Collection and the securing of the funds
for the construction of the future Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Institution
also opened to the public two new museums in the late 1960s: 15 The National Collection of Fine Arts and
the National Portrait Gallery housed in the newly renovated Old Patent Building. As such they opened
to the public in 1968 to exhibit the Institution’s collections of fine arts which had been previously shown
first at the Smithsonian Institution Building (Castle) in the 1860s-1890s; then at the U.S. National
Museum Building (Arts and Industries Building) beginning in 1879, and last at the Natural History
Building’s Art Hall beginning in 1910. 16
During the late 1960s and early 1970s Hispanic and Latin American collections began to grow
significantly with museum purchases, gifts and bequests. Some of the earliest Hispanic works to enter
the collection as museum purchases were works on paper by Antonio Frasconi and Mauricio Lasansky in
1967 as museum purchases. In 1969, the National Collection of Fine Arts received as gifts artworks by
Emilio Sanchez (gift of the artist); Antonio Henrique Amaral (gift of Emilio Sanchez); and Nathan Oliveira
(gift of the S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.). The new decade also brought new acquisitions of art works by
Rodolfo Abularach and Alfredo Halegua in 1970 and a portrait by Carlos Baca-Flor in 1971 to NPG.
In support of the collections, in 1970 a new research center transferred from Detroit to become
The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, which had already in the 1960s embarked in a series of oral
histories beginning with Jean Charlot in 1961, Patrocino Barela, Victor Daniel Chalela Martinez, Edward
Arcenio Chavez in 1964, followed by oral histories of Marisol [Escobar] dating from 1965 & 1968 and
Jose de Rivera in 1968.
As the National Collection of Fine Arts expanded its activities in its new off-National Mall
location throughout the 1970s, its mandate also grew to include art beyond the traditional painting,
sculpture and graphic arts collections. Individuals such as Harry Lowe (Assistant Director until 1981) and
Walter Hopps (Curator of 20 th century art 1973-1979) encouraged the collection of self-taught artists’
artworks to develop the 20 th Century American Folk Art collection. 17 The museum, sporting the new
name of National Museum of American Art since 1981, already by 1986 counted with over 200 selftaught
artists artworks among them several by Hispano artists. The acquisition of the Herbert Waide
Hemphill, Jr. Collection of Folk Art by gift and purchase in 1988 added over 420 pieces to the permanent
collection of the museum. Artworks on wood by Hispanic American artists dating from eighteenth
century New Mexico such as the Arroyo Hondo Painter, Eighteenth Century Novice and Pedro Antonio
Fresquís entered the collection via the Hemphill collection, as did a 19 th century sculpture by José Benito
14 De Pere, p. 224.
15 At this time, the Smithsonian split its collections into three: American and European art went to the National
Collection of Fine Arts, portraits went to the National Portrait Gallery, and decorative arts went to the National
Museum of History and Technology. In 1972 American crafts and design in turn went to the new Renwick Gallery.
16 Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 311, National Collection of Fine Arts, Office of the Director,
Records, 1892-1960. Finding Aids to Official Records of the Smithsonian Institution, Historical Note by William R.
Massa, Jr., and Tammy L. Peters. http://siarchives.si.edu/findingaids/faru0311.htm accessed 2 August 2011.
17 Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of
American Art. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1990: v.
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