There are two ways to get to know Spain and the Hispanic culture. The first is to travel to the country, visit its towns and cities, enjoy its landscapes, savor its gastronomy and visit its museums and monuments. The other is to travel to New York and enter the Hispanic Society of America, the largest Spanish cultural embassy abroad.
A part of the best that Spain has been able to give the world is found in that famous institution located in Manhattan created in 1904 by the American philanthropist and Hispanicist Archer Milton Hungary. Now, thanks to the exhibition «Visions of the Hispanic World. Treasures of the Hispanic Society of America »from the Prado Museum Europeans have the opportunity to visit the largest collection of Hispanic art outside of Spain (with more than 18.000 pieces), a mixture of the Prado Museum, the National Archaeological Museum and the National Library of Spain in the words of the director of the Hispanic Society and curator of the exhibition, Mitchell A. Codding.
From April 4 to September 10, “Visiones del mundo hispánico. Treasures of the Hispanic Society of America » an exhibition that brings together a set of 214 works (painting, sculpture, manuscripts, decorative arts and archaeological pieces and textiles) that span 4.000 years of history.
This exhibition is conceived as a tribute to Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955), the founder of the Hispanic Society of America in New York for the dissemination and study of Spanish culture in the United States.
Who was Archer Milton Huntington?
Born in the Bronx, he was the son of an industrialist from whom he inherited one of the largest fortunes in the country. As a mere teenager, he traveled to Paris and London for the first time. There he was amazed by the treasures of the Louvre and the British Museum and it was in the British capital that he bought a book by the English writer George Borrow on Spanish gypsies. This aroused his interest in Hispanic culture. When he was 20 years old, he traveled through our country on several occasions and fell in love with our culture. That is why he decided to dedicate his life to studying and disseminating Hispanic culture, creating a library and a museum in New York.
Thus, around 1900, he began to buy works for his collection at a time when the war in Cuba had ruined the prestige of Spanish in the United States. Little by little it was expanding its collection until it treasured 750.000 objects related mainly to the Iberian Peninsula, America and the Philippines.
What is the Hispanic Society of America like?
Located on Broadway Avenue between 155 and 156 streets in New York, the Hispanic Society of America is an institution created for the study and dissemination of Spanish culture in the United States. It is made up of a museum and a library that attracts thousands of people each year despite not being located near the great museums of the Big Apple.
With a staff of about 30, the Hispanic Society of America is entirely privately funded. Its annual budget is around 4 million dollars: more than half comes from the institution's own funds and from trusts left by Huntington. In addition, they receive donations and funds are raised through various activities, such as the institution's annual gala.
This institution makes great efforts to publicize Hispanic culture among Americans, some of whom tend to confuse Hispanic American culture with Spanish. But also among the Spanish, since he had previously made important loans for exhibitions at the Thyssen Museum or the Prado Museum. The most prominent to date was "Vision of Spain" which in 2009 hosted the 14 panels that Joaquín Sorolla painted for the institution on the customs and folklore of the different regions of the country. That one received 900.000 visitors and the current exhibition promises to exceed that number.
The Hispanic Society of America at the Prado Museum
Image | The country
All its great treasures had never left New York, but until September 10 we have the opportunity to see them at the Prado Museum in Madrid. Afterwards, the exhibition will tour several museums in the United States (the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston…) and perhaps it will also go to Mexico.
The Hispanic treasures some 18.000 works of art, including archaeological pieces, paintings, drawings, sculptures, decorative objects, jewelry, textiles ... from the Paleolithic to the 60th century. XNUMX% of the works have never been exhibited before in Spain.
Image | History and Archeology
In the Prado you will see a small but exquisite selection. The route that is proposed begins in the third millennium BC with Paleolithic ceramics and reaches the XNUMXth century with the paintings of Sorolla, Zuloaga or Ramón Casas, among others. In addition to ancient archeology and the works of painters from Huntington's time, the exhibition includes Roman sculpture, Phoenician, Visigothic, Hispano-Muslim, Christian Middle Ages, colonial art, Golden Age art, jewelry, manuscripts, books incunabula, maps, legal documents and a long etcetera. Not in vain has he forced to occupy all the temporary rooms of the Jerónimos wing, where a documentary about the American philanthropist, New York and his time is also screened.
With the exclusive sponsorship of the BBVA Foundation, the exhibition «Visiones del mundo hispánico. Treasures of the Hispanic Society of America »will be open to the public in the Museo del Prado's Jerónimos Building. Furthermore, this collaboration with the Prado has served to restore the original brilliance and splendor to some of Goya's and Velázquez's magnificent canvases such as La Duquesa de Alba or Portrait of a Girl, respectively.