The Museo de la Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...

located in the historic center of

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

. It is housed in what was the Palacio del Arzobispado (Palace of the Archbishopric), built in 1530 under Friar Juan de Zumárraga on the base of the destroyed pyramid dedicated to the Aztec god

Tezcatlipoca Tezcatlipoca (; nci, Tēzcatl ihpōca ) was a central deity in Aztec religion, and his main festival was the Toxcatl ceremony celebrated in the month of May. One of the four sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the God of providence, he is a ...

. It remained the archbishphoric until 1867 when the Finance Ministry Accountancy Department was established there. The modern museum houses an exhibit dedicated to this god as well as a large art collection.

History

The building was the colonial archbishop's palace and contains two stone-columned courtyards. In 1530, Friar Juan de Zumárraga became the first archbishop of New Spain, which at that time included most of the Americas and the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. He decided to place the see in two houses near where the

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

would later be built. After initial adaptation, two structures were added: one to cast bells and the other served as a prison. The structure continued to be modified until 1771 when it attained the appearance still seen today. The complex is topped by a cornice on with inverted arches are combined with

merlon A merlon is the solid upright section of a battlement (a crenellated parapet) in medieval architecture or fortifications.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 202. Merlons are sometimes ...

s. Two

estipite The estipite column is a type of pilaster typical of the Churrigueresque Baroque style of Spain and Spanish America used in the 18th century. In the late Baroque period, many classical architectural elements lost their simple shapes and became in ...

columns flank the bay of the portal, through which the highest ecclesiastical authorities of colonial times once passed. Remnants of the pyramid of Tezcatlipoca can be seen on the ground floor. This is because of a restoration project concluded in 1997. Along with restoring the colonial building, two excavations were carried out to expose details of the pre-Hispanic structures. Imprisoned here was one of the first conspirators for

Mexican Independence The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...

, Francisco Primo de Verdad y Ramos, who died here in 1808. PatioSHCPMuseum

Museum

The modern museum houses a collection of art from the 18th to 20th centuries, including works by

Juan Correa Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...

Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a disputed overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It is a militarised atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of the 60 small islands of ...

Rufino Tamayo Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, ...

, Federico Cantú, Antonio Ruiz, Adolfo Best Maugard and Raúl Anguiano. The central and permanent exhibit is called the "Pago en Especie y Acervo Patrimonial" (payment in kind and cultural heritage). It features works done by Mexicans and foreigners living in Mexico, many of whom donated the works here in lieu of paying their taxes, as part of a program initiated in 1957 as part of an initiative to stimulate artistic activity in Mexico for Mexico. The program's foremost promoter was artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. However, the idea did not really take off until the 1970s when Jaime Saldívar, Inés Amor,

Gilberto Aceves Navarro Gilberto Aceves Navarro (September 24, 1931 – October 21, 2019) was a List of Mexican artists, Mexican painter and sculptor and a professor at the National School of Arts (UNAM), Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas and Academy of San Carlos. Th ...

repromoted Siquieros' idea, gaining backing from president

Luis Echeverría Álvarez Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

in 1975. The revived project has enjoyed enthusiastic support from contemporary artists such as Luis López Loza, Roberto Doniz, Luis Nishizawa,

Ángela Gurría Ángela Gurría Davó (24 March 1929 – 17 February 2023) was a Mexican sculptor. In 1974, she became the first female member of the Academia de Artes. She is best known for her monumental sculptures such as ''Señal'', an eighteen-meter tall ...

Roger von Gunten Roger von Gunten (born 1933) is an artist and sculptor, originally from Zurich, but in 1980 became a naturalized Mexican citizen. He was the subject of a 1978 essay by Jomí García Ascot and was part of the ''Breakaway Generation'' which emerg ...

, Francisco Corzas, Feliciano Béjar, Francisco Capdevilla, Fernando Castro Pacheco, Arnaldo Coen,

José Luis Cuevas José Luis Cuevas (February 26, 1934 – July 3, 2017) was a Mexican artist, he often worked as a painter, writer, draftsman, engraver, illustrator, and printmaker. Cuevas was one of the first to challenge the then dominant Mexican muralism ...

José Chávez Morado José Chávez Morado (4 January 1909 – 1 December 2002) was a Mexican artist who was associated with the Mexican muralism movement of the 20th century. His generation followed that of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqu ...

and

Arnold Belkin Arnold Belkin (December 9, 1930 – July 3, 1992) was a Canadian- Mexican painter credited for continuing the Mexican muralism tradition at a time when many Mexican painters were shifting away from it. Born and raised in western Canada, he ...

, among others, many of whom still make donations to the museum's collection. Because of this, the museum has been able to assemble exhibits of works by individuals such as Rodolfo Morales,

Rafael Coronel Rafael Coronel (24 October 1932 – 7 May 2019) was a Mexican painter. He was the son-in-law of Diego Rivera. His representational paintings have a melancholic sobriety, and include faces from the past great masters, often floating in a diffuse ...

Manuel Felguérez Manuel Felguérez Barra (December 12, 1928June 8, 2020) was a Mexican abstract artist, part of the Generación de la Ruptura that broke with the muralist movement of Diego Rivera and others in the mid 20th century. Early life Felguérez was ...

and Vicente Rojo. The museum also hosts temporary exhibits, mostly of contemporary art.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Museo De La Secretaria De Hacienda Y Credito Publico Houses completed in 1530 Secretaria De Hacienda Y Credito Publico Secretaria De Hacienda Y Credito Publico Secretaria De Hacienda Y Credito Publico Secretaria De Hacienda Y Credito Publico Secretaria De Hacienda Y Credito Publico Historic center of Mexico City Palaces in Mexico Landmarks in Mexico City History of Mexico City Mexican culture Aztec sites Secretaria De Hacienda Y Credito Publico 1957 establishments in Mexico Colonial Mexico Spanish Colonial architecture in Mexico