José Luis Cuevas Museum
Encyclopedia
Zócalo
The Zócalo is the main plaza or square in the heart of the historic center of Mexico City. The plaza used to be known simply as the "Main Square" or "Arms Square," and today its formal name is Plaza de la Constitución...
of Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
and started out as parts of the same convent complex. The museum was founded in what in colonial times was the residential portion of the convent of Santa Inés (Agnes of Rome). This convent was founded in 1600 by Don Diego Caballero and his wife Doña Inés de Velasco. The convent existed until 1861, when, due to the Nationalization of Church Property Act, all covents and monasteries in the country were disbanded. The convent’s church and residence hall where separated and the Church of Santa Inés still maintains its original function. The residence hall became private property, functioning mostly as tenements until artist José Luis Cuevas bought the property with the intention to restoring it and establishing the current museum dedicated to his art and art of contemporary Latin America.
History of the convent
The order of Santa Inés was founded in 1600, by Don Diego Caballero and his wife Doña Inés de Velasco. Their patronage was funded by their ownership of the largest sugar cane processing operation in New SpainNew Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...
. The Santa Inés convent was originally built to accommodate thirty-three nuns, equal to the number of years Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
spent on earth. In colonial times, it also took in Spanish orphans who did not have a dowry. In return, these orphans were required to pray an hour a day for their benefactors.
The complex suffered damage in 1624 as a result of flooding and again in 1639 due to a fire. In 1710, its single tower was built, which was high enough to be seen from the main plaza of town. Towards the end of the 18th century, its ceiling was rotten, and the church and tower were cracked. The complex was repaired under the patronage of the Marquis of La Cadena. In 1861, due the Reform Laws
Reform War
The Reform War in Mexico is one of the episodes of the long struggle between Liberal and Conservative forces that dominated the country’s history in the 19th century. The Liberals wanted a federalist government, limiting traditional Catholic Church and military influence in the country...
the convent was closed. The nuns here were moved first to Santa Teresa La Antigua
Santa Teresa la Antigua
Santa Teresa la Antigua is a former convent located in the historic center of Mexico City on Licenciado Primo de Verdad #6 just northeast of the city's main plaza...
then later to Santa Catalina de Siena. The tower was demolished, and the church and convent were separated with the convent’s residence portion being sold into private hands due to the nationalization of church property at that time. The convent and church were declared a national monument in 1932, but it remained private property as tenement
Tenement
A tenement is, in most English-speaking areas, a substandard multi-family dwelling, usually old, occupied by the poor.-History:Originally the term tenement referred to tenancy and therefore to any rented accommodation...
s until the 1980’s, when the museum project began.
Church of Santa Inés
The entrance of the church is at 26 Moneda Street, just northeast of the main plaza of Mexico City. This church is considered to be a mix of styles between Mexican BaroqueBaroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
and Neo-classic
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
. The church was completely finished in 1770.
The church has two portals, one dedicated to Saint Agnes and the other to the Apostle James. The wooden doors of this church are carved with reliefs. Some of these depict the life of Saint Agnes and others show images of the nuns of the convent with their benefactors, Don Diego Caballero and Doña Inés de Velasco. One scene depicts the life of the Apostle James just after he is martyred by decapitation. One other shows Santiago Matamoros, a saint connected with the expulsion of the Moors from Spain
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
.
Its dome is decorated with tiles laid in a strip design and made to look like rebozo
Rebozo
A rebozo is a woman's garment used in Mexico. Rectangular in shape, rebozos vary in size from 1.5 to upwards of three metres, and can be made of cotton, wool, silk, or articela. They can be worn as scarves or shawls, and women often use them to carry children and take products to the market. It is...
s, a type of indigenous shawl. Inside, the original Baroque altar is long gone, replaced with the current Neoclassic
Neoclassical sculpture
Neoclassical sculpture was a sculptural style of the 18th and 19th centuries. The neoclassical period was one of the great ages of public sculpture, though its "classical" prototypes were more likely to be Roman copies of Hellenistic sculptures. The neoclassical sculptors paid homage to an idea of...
altar. Mexican painters Miguel Cabrera
Miguel Cabrera (painter)
Miguel Mateo Maldonado y Cabrera was an indigenous Zapotec painter during the Viceroyalty of New Spain, today's Mexico. During his lifetime, he was recognized as the greatest painter in all of New Spain....
and José de Ibarra
José de Ibarra
José de Ibarra was a Mexican painter. He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and died 21 Nov 1756 in Mexico City. He was a student of painter Juan Correa. Many of his pieces are preserved in Mexican museums and the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City. He was one of the most prolific painters of...
are interned in altar here.
José Luis Cuevas Museum
By the late 1970’s, artist José Luis CuevasJose Luis Cuevas
José Luis Cuevas is a modernist painter and sculptor from Mexico. Born in 1934, Cuevas derived most of his training outside of the academies. He is considered to be one of the artists from the 1950s in the Rupture Generation that was departing from the politicized and stylized mural school of...
had gathered a large collection of modern art by Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n artists with the aim of establishing a museum in his name. The collection was kept in the storage facilities of the Carrillo Gil Museum as Cuevas looked for a suitable location for the collection. Having been born in the Centro (Mexico City) of Mexico City, Cuevas wanted the museum to be located there. After deciding upon the old convent building and relocated the tenants that lived there in 1983, Cuevas, along with government agencies and private supporters set to restore the building and perform archeological work, which revealed many of the older constructions of the convent. Restoration work was completed in 1988, and the museum opened on 8 July 1992. While it was mostly restored to its colonial appearance, Cuevas had the courtyard roofed with a plastic dome to have something contrary and modern. The entrance of the museum is located at 13 Academia Street, around the corner from the Santa Inés Church.
The convent’s patio is dominated by a tall bronze sculpture called “La Giganta” (The Female Giant). Cuevas himself created this statue for this particular space. The statue is eight meters tall and weighs 8 tons. The principal exhibition rooms contain Cuevas’ own works, including one room dedicated to his and his wife’s (Bertha Cuevas) work and the Pablo Picasso room, containing a collection of Cuevas’ drawings. The collection of the museum includes Mexican artists such as Francisco Toledo
Francisco Toledo
Francisco Benjamín López Toledo is a Mexican graphic artist. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca and the Centro Superior de Artes Aplicadas del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico, where he studied graphic arts with Guillermo Silva Santamaria...
, Juan Soriano
Juan Soriano
Juan Soriano was a Mexican painter and sculptor.Soriano, son of Rafael Rodríguez Soriano and Amalia Montoya Navarro, was born in Guadalajara and displayed his first painting at age 14...
, Vicente Rojo Almazán, Manuel Felguérez
Manuel Felguérez
Manuel Felguérez Aspe is a Mexican abstract artist.-Biography:Felguérez was born at the Hacienda de San Agustin del Vergel, in the town of Valparaíso, Zacatecas. At the time, in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, there were still uprisings by small guerrillas and land ownership was nothing less...
, Arnold Belkin
Arnold Belkin
Arnold Belkin was a Mexican painter and mural artist. Born in Canada, he moved to Mexico to be closer to the Mexican artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Siquerios. In the '50s he befriended the latter, collaborating with him on two murals in Mexico City...
, Gabriel Macotela, as well as some foreign artists such as Roberto Matta
Roberto Matta
Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren , better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art....
, Fernando de Szys-Varo, Leonora Carrington
Leonora Carrington
Leonora Carrington OBE was a British-born Mexican artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City.-Early life:...
and Remedios Varo
Remedios Varo
Remedios Varo Uranga was a Spanish-Mexican, para-surrealist painter and anarchist. She was born María de los Remedios Varo Uranga in Anglès, Girona, Spain in 1908. During the Spanish Civil War she fled to Paris where she was greatly influenced by the surrealist movement...
.