Museo de Arte de Ponce (MAP) 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 on
Avenida Las Américas
Avenida Las Américas, is a major thoroughfare in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Most of its length is signed as Puerto Rico Highway 163 (PR-163). The highway has both of its termini as well as all of its length entirely within the Ponce city limits. It ...
in
Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.
Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...
.
[Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Tourism Company. Ven al Sur, page 20. San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2003.] It houses a collection of
European art
The art of Europe, or Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period between the Paleo ...
,
as well as works by
Puerto Rican artists. The museum contains one of the most important
Pre-Raphaelite
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
collections in the
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...
, holding some 4,500 pieces of art
[MAP 2007 Annual Report](_blank)
Retrieved 10 June 2009. distributed among fourteen
galleries.
Museo de Arte de Ponce is the finest art museum in Puerto Rico. The largest art museum in the Caribbean, it has also been called one of the best in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
.
It was the first museum in Puerto Rico accredited by the
American Alliance of Museums
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, p ...
.
It was founded in 1959 by
industrialist and
philanthropist Luis A. Ferré at a location in the
Ponce Historic Zone
The Ponce Historic Zone (''La Zona Histórica de Ponce'') is a historic district in downtown Ponce, Puerto Rico, consisting of buildings and structures with architecture that date to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The zone go ...
. The museum moved to its current building location on
Avenida Las Américas
Avenida Las Américas, is a major thoroughfare in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Most of its length is signed as Puerto Rico Highway 163 (PR-163). The highway has both of its termini as well as all of its length entirely within the Ponce city limits. It ...
in 1965. In 2010, the museum increased its size significantly after a $30M expansion.
History
![Museo de Arte de Ponce, Barrio Canas Urbano, Ponce, Puerto Rico, mirando hacia el norte](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Museo_de_Arte_de_Ponce%2C_Barrio_Canas_Urbano%2C_Ponce%2C_Puerto_Rico%2C_mirando_hacia_el_norte.jpg)
The project of the museum began in 1956 when
Luis A. Ferré traveled to
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
and acquired various European art pieces, including many
Pre-Raphaelite works, which encouraged him to start a project for a museum in the city of
Ponce, his birthplace. With the advice of two experts – Julius S. Held, specialist on
Rubens and professor of
Art History
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
at
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
and
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and René Taylor, art and architecture enthusiast and professor at the
University of Granada
The University of Granada ( es, Universidad de Granada, UGR) is a public university located in the city of Granada, Spain, and founded in 1531 by Emperor Charles V. With more than 60,000 students, it is the fourth largest university in Spain. Ap ...
,
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
, and
Columbia – Ferré compiled a collection of works of art based on their value instead of their popularity. Ferré would state in a ''Forbes'' interview that "the scholars and critics all called it
kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...
, everyone thought I was crazy to buy them."
On 3 January 1959, Ferré opened the museum at a house at 70 Cristina Street in
Ponce at what is today the
Centro Cultural de Ponce, with an exhibit of 72 works of art.
Some of these original paintings continue to be on display today. As time passed and the museum gained popularity, additional works of art were added to the collections. In 1962, the
Samuel H. Kress Foundation donated 15 paintings to the museum.
By 1989, the museum's collection had grown to 500 pieces, with a then estimated value of $50 million,
equivalent to $ in present-day terms.
Fearing a fire in the Cristina Street building would destroy its collections, Ferré acquired a tract of land on Las Americas Avenue in Ponce to build the current museum, and recruited
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
Edward Durell Stone
Edward Durell Stone (March 9, 1902 – August 6, 1978) was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s. His works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, the Museo de A ...
for its design.
On 23 April 1964 the first stone was placed and the construction of the museum began. It was finished in 1965 and officially opened on 28 December 1965. One of the main features of the museum is its
hexagonal
In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°.
Regular hexagon
A '' regular hexagon'' has ...
galleries, which allow natural light to enter through its corners bringing an illumination to exhibitions. The museum contained a total of 14 galleries, two
gardens
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...
, and an
amphitheater, and its main entrance with bifurcated ladders.
''Pinceladas en Vuelo'' ("Brushstokes in Flight"), a 28-foot-high aluminum structure created in 1984 by New York sculptor
Roy Lichtenstein sits on the front yard of the museum, which was then considered "the largest public
isplay artwork in Latin America and the Caribbean."
The museum was closed from 2008 to 2010 while undergoing renovations, re-opening in time for the celebration of its 50th anniversary on 13 November 2010, after a $30 million in improvements.
In the meantime, the museum held exhibitions in
San Juan's
Plaza Las Américas
Plaza Las Américas is a shopping mall in Hato Rey, San Juan, Puerto Rico, located at the intersection of Routes 18 and 22. "''Plaza''", as it is known to many Puerto Ricans, was the first indoor shopping mall built in Puerto Rico. It is the ...
, and loaned some of its best pieces out to traveling exhibitions at fine arts institutions around the world.
The construction work was both a renovation of the existing structure as well as an expansion, increasing the size of the museum by more than 40%. The $20-turn-$30 million renovations also included a new building to house a historic archive and a library.
The new annex to the museum's main building houses an educational space, a library specializing in art history, the Don Luis A. Ferré Archives, a laboratory for the conservation of artworks, an artwork storage area, a museum shop, a restaurant, and administrative offices.
After the expansion, the total square footage of the museum came to 77,745 square feet. The expansion intended to provide facilities for educational purposes and an art history library as well as to provide room for a museum shop and a restaurant for guests.
The
thoroughfare
A thoroughfare is a primary passage or way as a transit route through regularly trafficked areas, whether by road on dry land or, by
extension, via watercraft or aircraft. On land, a thoroughfare may refer to anything from a multi-lane highwa ...
on which the museum is located, a major
road artery in Ponce, was renamed the "
Luis A. Ferré Boulevard" in honor of the founder of the museum.
[''Bautizan el Bulevar Luis Alberto Ferré.''](_blank)
Ana María Rolón Romero. Ponce, Puerto Rico. La Perla del Sur. 10–17 November 2010. Weblink updated 7 May 2018.
In 2021, the museum was named as a recipient for the
National Medal for Museum and Library Service
The National Medal for Museum and Library Service is an award given annually by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to American libraries and museums with outstanding service to their communities. The IMLS refers to the medal as "t ...
.
Artworks
![Flaming_June,_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_%281830-1896%29.jpg)
The Museo de Arte de Ponce houses the most important collection of European art in Latin America.
The ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...
'' of London states that the museum holds "one of the most distinguished private collections in the Western Hemisphere outside the United States."
It has an important collection of almost 4,000 pieces of art that range from the 14th to the 20th century, Italian
Baroque, British
Pre-Raphaelite
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
, Spanish
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...
and contemporary
Latin-American
Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-ethn ...
art.
Some of the artists whose paintings and works are exhibited at the museum are
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradi ...
,
Lucas Cranach Cranach is a German-language surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Augustin Cranach (1554–1595), German painter
*Hans Cranach (c. 1513–1537), German painter
*Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472–1553), German artist
*Lucas Cranach th ...
,
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo,
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
, and Sir
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...
, among others. The main masterpiece of the museum is ''
Flaming June'', painted by
Frederic Leighton
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subjec ...
. Ferré bought this piece for less than $1,000 in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
in 1960, and it was his favorite.
''
The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon
''The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon'' is a painting by Edward Burne-Jones, started in 1881. The massive painting measures 279 cm × 650 cm, and is widely considered to be Burne-Jones's ''magnum opus''.Waters, p. 42.
The painting was o ...
'', the final masterpiece and crowning achievement of Sir
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...
, is another of the main pieces of the museum's collection, originally acquired by Ferré for just 1,600
British guineas in 1963.
[Brown, Mark (15 April 2008)]
"Pre-Raphaelite painting of Arthur returns"
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', retrieved 4 February 2014 The enormous painting was started in 1881 and left unfinished at the artist's death in 1898. In 2009, both ''Flaming June'' and ''The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon'' were loaned to
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
while the museum underwent a two-year refurbishment.
Other paintings were loaned to the
Museo del Prado in Madrid.
"Equally important is the Puerto Rican art collection, which ranges from the 18th century to the present day and includes great masters such as
José Campeche
José Campeche y Jordán (December 23, 1751 – November 7, 1809), is the first known Puerto Rican visual artist and considered by art critics as one of the best rococo artists in the Americas. Campeche y Jordán loved to use colors that referenc ...
,
Francisco Oller
Francisco Oller (June 17, 1833 – May 17, 1917) was a Puerto Rican painter. Oller is the only Latin American painter to have played a role in the development of Impressionism. One of the most distinguished transatlantic painters of his da ...
,
Miguel Pou, as well as the best contemporary talent such as
Myrna Báez,
Francisco Rodón,
Antonio Martorell and
Arnaldo Roche Rabell Arnaldo Roche Rabell (December 5, 1955 – November 17, 2018) was a Puerto Rican painter, described as "one of the most important artists of the neo-expressionist movement".
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was educated at the Luchetti School ...
, among others."
''Culture: Museo de Arte de Ponce: Exhibiciones.''
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. 2008. (''This webpage was "collected at the request of British Slave Trade Legacies using Archive-It. This page was captured on 11:26:44 Aug 16, 2008, and is part of the British Slave Trade Legacies collection."'') Accessed 30 January 2019.
The museum also displays works by international artists. In March 2006, the museum exhibited the work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
The Museum charges a small admission fee to the public, but most revenues come from substantial donations made by Puerto Rican individuals and businesses. Some have made single donations for the sole purpose of acquiring art to be exhibited in the museum, while others donate for the maintenance and operational expenditures of the museum. A bronze plaque placed in the front entrance and next to the information booth recognizes these donors.
Selected collection highlights
File:Antonio de Pereda - The Immaculate Conception - 1657.jpg, Antonio de Pereda
File:Matías de Arteaga y Alfaro - The Flight into Egypt.jpg, Matías de Arteaga y Alfaro
File:Francisco Camilo - The Infant Jesus as Victor over Sin and Death - c. 1640-60.jpg, Francisco Camilo
See also
* Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art
The Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, often abbreviated to MAC, is a contemporary art museum in Santurce, Puerto Rico.
History
The museum was founded by artists and sponsors of the civil society and was officially instituted on October ...
References
Further reading
''The Strange Journey of One of the World’s Most Famous Paintings.'' Patrick Monahan. Vanity Fair. 4 June 2015. Accessed 30 January 2019.
External links
*
Museo de Arte de Ponce, at its former structure on Calle Cristina, now the "Centro Cultural de Ponce Carmen Solá de Pereira."
Museo de Arte de Ponce
within Google Arts & Culture
*
{{Authority control
Art museums and galleries in Puerto Rico
Museums in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums
Art museums established in 1959
1959 establishments in Puerto Rico
Edward Durell Stone buildings
Modern architecture in Puerto Rico
Tourist attractions in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Barrio Canas Urbano