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Museo de Arte de Ponce

Markets and Foodways

A grouping of seven oil and acrylic paintings measuring in size from 14 x 16 in. to 48 x 81 in. by artists working across Latin America during the second half of the 20th century. Featured are Puerto Rican artists Miguel Pou y Becerra (1880-1968) and Myrna Báez (1931-2018), as well as Cuban artist Emilio Sánchez (1921-1999). The works range from tightly cropped still lifes to colorful aerial vistas of Mexican and Puerto Rican markets, and a mountainside tobacco plantation. Markets and foodstuffs have been a central motif of Latin American art since the Colonial era, when the region was portrayed as a bountiful land of resources ripe for extraction and consumption by European settlers. Unpacking the historical connotations of this aesthetic is a central tenant of decolonial practices and unlocks broader contemporary queries about the legacy of colonialism.

Interiors of Emilio Sánchez

This three-panel oil painting measuring in total 72 x 108 in. summarizes in a single composition the hard-edged depictions of architectural spaces by Cuban artist Emilio Sánchez (1921-1999). The work features the most celebrated and distinctive traits of Sánchez’s work: sensibility to artificial and natural space, the interplay of light and shadow, and broad blocks of solid color. The arched doorway decorated with yellow and blue stained glass is an architectural feature found throughout Cuba, where it serves to block out the harsh tropical sun from a building’s interior. Stained glass windows are a popular motif in Cuban painting and remained a constant through Sánchez’s oeuvre.

Streetscapes of Emilio Sánchez

This grouping of nine mid-size oil paintings offers a succinct overview of the hard-edged depictions of urban and architectural spaces of Emilio Sánchez (1921-1999), one of the most important Cuban artists of the second half of the 20th century. Sun-drenched porches, diagonal shadows cast across shuttered Brooklyn facades, and a lonesome depiction of the Cuban capital showcase the varied output that Sánchez was able to achieve with his rigorously economical visual vocabulary. Sánchez’s built spaces are seldom inhabited and are more akin to a painterly exploration of color and light than to a mimetic depiction of reality. As such, they offer an intriguing counterpoint to the work of other abstract Cuban artists.

Portraiture Across Latin America

A grouping of five oil and acrylic paintings ranging from 11 x 12 in. to 65 x 48 in. that features two of the most renowned Puerto Rican artists of the second-half of the 20th century: Miguel Pou y Becerra (1880-1968) and Epifanio Irizarry (1915-2001). Although revolving around portraiture, this varied grouping offers a broad view of the innovative and unique ways in which artists in the region have engaged with the genre over the last seventy years: from character studies of street dwellers rendered in a style reminiscent of Social Realism to gestural and dynamic depictions of syncretic rituals.

Contemporary Landscapes from Puerto Rico

Landscapes, particularly those featuring Caribbean beaches, have been an artistic mainstay since the Colonial era. The genre boasted scenes of unbound riches ripe for extraction by the Eurocentric viewers for whom the works were intended. The region continues to be portrayed as a paradisiacal getaway for the sake of the tourism industry. This grouping of paintings shows how contemporary artists have reworked the motif into dynamic, painterly explorations reminiscent of color-field painting and pointillism.

Contemporary Abstraction from Puerto Rico

A grouping of three mixed-media paintings ranging from 72 x 48 in. to 68 x 99 in. that mirror the range of visual vocabularies being developed by contemporary artists in Puerto Rico today. While Carlos Dávila Rinaldi’s (b. 1958) rendering of the ubiquitous Piraguero (snow cone cart) figuratively explores both the shape and colors of everyday life in Puerto Rico, Orlando Vallejo (b. 1955) portrays the clash between natural elements and urbanization in a dynamic composition, and José Jorge Román (b. 1967) relies on Braille and polychromatic grids to explore visually abstract paintings that remain legible through tact for blind and partially sighted people.

Four Decades of Latin American Abstraction

A grouping of five oil-and-acrylic paintings ranging from 20 x 26 in. to 49 x 48 in. (including a 72 in. diameter tondo) that documents four decades of abstract art in Puerto Rico and beyond. While featuring mainly the work of mid-century Puerto Rican artists, the grouping features the notable exception of Mexican painter, graphic artist, and designer Gunther Gerzo (1915-2000), one of the so-called “New Tres Grandes” of Mexican abstract art, a reference to the three “great” Mexican muralists from earlier in the century.

Legacies of Surrealism

This grouping of six oil-and-acrylic paintings by artists working across Latin America bears witness to the profound influence of Surrealism in the region. Although produced in the second half of the 20th century, these works foreground thematic and stylistic traits that first emerged in the region during the 1930s and developed throughout the ensuing decades, such as realistic portrayals of dreamlike landscapes, foreboding creaturely entities, and bizarre non-referential organic shapes seemingly inspired by nature. The grouping features artists directly associated with Surrealism, such as Argentine Victor Chab (b. 1930).