Issue date: 10/20/06 Section: A & E

The new Tesoros exhibit at the art museum will be displayed until Dec. 31.

The new Tesoros exhibit will be in the Philadelphia Museum of Art from Sept. 20 to Dec. 3. The exhibit focuses on art from Latin America from 1492 to 1820, the period of Spanish and Portuguese domination. The 250 paintings tell the tale of how European and native arts combined to create an entirely new style of art.

Anne d'Harnoncourt told reporters that "This ambitious exhibition will present our visitors with an opportunity to discover the extraordinarily rich and diverse artistic legacy that was born out of one of the most epic and cross-cultural encounters in world history."

Tesoros is going on tour to three cities in the United States and Mexico. Tesoros will then move to Mexico City and will be on display from Feb. 3 to May 6. From there, Tesoros will move to Los Angeles and be on display from Jun. 10 to Sept. 3.

The tour is made possible by various organizations. Fundación Televisa is a major provider for the international tour. In Philadelphia, the exhibit is supported by The Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson, Popular Financial Holdings, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connelly Foundation and others.

The exhibition was organized by Joseph J. Rishel, the Gisela and Dennis Alter senior curator of European painting before 1900 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt. According to Rishel, "This exhibition will be the first to disregard the boundaries created in the early 19th century during the birth of independent nation states in Latin America. It will be a major reappraisal and will give our visitors an opportunity to make fresh discoveries among a dazzling array of remarkable works of art."

It is amazing to learn that even through the destruction of the Spanish and Portuguese conquests, the art of the natives survived. Art from conquered cities made it into Europe where European art collectors such as Albrecht Dürer were amazed at the art.

The art found in the exhibition is from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Each century has its own feel. The 16th century features artists from Europe coming to Latin America and mixing styles with the natives. The mixing of the two art forms created a completely new style of art that was unique and like nothing the world had seen before.

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