The Metropolitan, MoMA, the Natural History Museum, the Guggenheim. They are museums considered essential for New York and that are not lacking in the list of essentials of the art lovers. They are also cultural centers that are concentrated in the same radius, downtown Manhattan, and unfairly overshadow other entities that deserve the same treatment.
One of them is The Hispanic Society Museum and Library, located in the neighborhood of Washington Heights. The institution was founded in 1904 by Archer Milton Huntington, who discovered Spanish architecture, art and language in Texas, a state that was under the control of Spain and Mexico until the mid-19th century.
Cargo Sailing Boats, by Orville Houghton Peets, The Hispanic Society.
Huntington amassed a large collection of pieces from both countries and many more, as the executive director, Guillaume Kientz, explains to Condé Nast Traveler Spain. “When people think of our collection they exclusively imagine art from Spain, Portugal Y Latin America. But we have much more. We have American, French, Chinese art. What they have in common is that address the Hispanic culture.”
Kientz took the reins of the museum in the spring of 2021, when the pandemic was still imposing many restrictions to cultural institutions that wanted to open their doors. Still, last summer they were able to exhibit several of his religious sculptures and this year they have opened the East Wing with the aim of reforming the entire museum and release your vast collection.
American Travelers occupies the ground floor of the new wing which has three more floors, currently under reconstruction along with the main gallery, which is scheduled to reopen in early 2023. The exhibition rescues from oblivion several North American painters who traveled to Hispanic countries and immortalized their streets and monuments in his paintings.
American Travelers at The Hispanic Society, New York.
the commissioner Marcus B Burke offers more details: “The idea originated from a retrospective that we organized jointly with the Metropolitan on the painter Childe Hassam. This American impressionist was captivated by the work of the Valencian Joaquin Sorolla, that he met right here, and that pushed him to travel to Spain in 1910”.
The sample not only claims watercolor technique, which is the focus of the exhibition, but rather provides more context by accompanying those works with other pieces from the same place that served as inspiration. For example, works of George Wharton Edwards and Florence Vincent Robinson Made in the Alhambra, they are exhibited with ceramics and tiles from the same 15th-century palace. “Suddenly, we open a drawer and all these hidden wonders came out that allow a tour of the Iberian Peninsula, says Burke with irresistible enthusiasm. The good thing about Spain is that in just 10 minutes you can visit five historical periods. It's all there, at your fingertips."
Various pieces by the contemporary painter Timothy Clark, that recreate details of Valencia, Azores and the cathedral of Cuenca, occupy the gallery center.
Cuenca Cathedral, by Timothy Clark, The Hispanic Society.
The exhibition is only an appetizer of what is to come and which, for Kientz, is a vindication of the Lower Manhattan and all its attributes. Starting with the museum itself. “Visit this style building Beaux-Arts It is transporting you to the past. Once inside you forget that you are in New York and you feel comfortable. We are the gateway to the north of the island and a neighborhood that is still unknown to many people, including many New Yorkers.”
The Hispanic Society is just one of many cultural institutions among Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood. Added two of the historic mansions of Manhattan: Hamilton Grange and Morris Jumel. without forgetting about The Cloisters, the museum that depends on the Metropolitan and is focused on medieval art. “There is the Fifth Avenue museum mile and there is also a museum hub in Downtown which includes the New Museum and the Whitney. We want to do the same in the Lower Manhattan in collaboration with all these institutions to attract visitors and discover them, not only the art, but also the shops, restaurants and people from the neighborhood”.
In addition to the reopening of the central gallery, with a reconfiguration of space to make it more accessible, the museum makes it a priority to show Sorolla's work again. This impressive room exhibits 14 paintings by the artist, made between 1912 and 1919 in various parts of Spain, which capture the daily life of the time.
The set occupies 60 meters long and goes all the way around the room. Kientz trusts that the reinvention of the Hispanic Society will allow to discover not only unique art in the United States but all a neighborhood with infinite points of interest and whose transformation cannot be reversed. Maybe you can be one of the first to do it.