This month's museum pick...

Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art

By Patrick Totty

A U.S. city houses some of the world’s best Latin American art

Ironically, one of the best museums in the world for viewing Latin American art is housed in a U.S. city in a former brewery. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art, which opened in 1998, occupies a 33,000-square-foot space in the San Antonio Museum of Art, which has been housed since 1981 in the former Lone Star Brewery, itself built in 1884.

The Rockefeller Center’s collection is not only the largest of its kind in the U.S., it’s also considered one of the broadest in the world, ranging over a 3,000-year span of Latin American art – from Olmec figurines dating back as far as perhaps 1,500 B.C. to late 20th century paintings. That breadth allows scholars and visitors to see the continuities in Latin American art as they move from era to era, and the influences particular themes and motifs had on later art.

The major categories in the collection are Pre-Columbian, Spanish Colonial and Latin American Folk Art. The latter collection, which has 10,000 objects, came from two donors in 1985, the late Nelson A. Rockefeller and collector Robert K. Winn.

The Pre-Columbian collection covers Mesoamerica (Mexico), Central America and the Andes. Its particular strength is the Mesoamerican collection, which includes many Olmec, Toltec, Aztec and Mayan objects. The Andean collection is strong in ceramics and textiles, especially from the pre-Inca era.

“Samoa” (San Antonio Museum of Art) also features a strong antiquities collection, including Egyptian, Roman and Islamic art. Most locals now consider it the best museum in a heavily Latino city that has passed 1 million in population and is feeling its cultural muscle. Samoa joins River Walk and the Alamo as an essential component in a visit to San Antonio.