The Blanton Museum of Art acquired 119 works of Spanish and Portuguese colonial art.
Unknown artist, Rest in the Flight into Egypt, Bolivia, 18th century, oil on canvas. Courtesy the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin.
On Tuesday, the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin announced that it had acquired 119 objects from the collection of Roberta and Richard Huber, one of the most noteworthy collections of art from Spain and Portugal’s American colonies in the world. The acquisition, which includes painting, sculpture, furniture, and silverwork, highlights artistic practices and visual culture from wildly diverse societies in the Americas from the late 1600s to the early 1800s.
Unknown artist, Coquera (coca box), Bolivian, c. 1730, silver. Courtesy the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin.
In a statement, Richard Huber said:
My wife, Roberta, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better steward for our collection than the Blanton, an institution with a long legacy of leadership in the field of Latin American art. We’re thrilled for the Blanton to present the works to audiences from Austin, the rest of the country, and abroad, and for them to be used in the museum’s robust teaching program on campus and in the community.
Highlights of the Hubers’ collection include 18th-century Brazilian and Guatemalan religious sculptures, Peruvian portraiture, and a 19th-century Brazilian amulet. This isn’t the first major boost to the Blanton’s Latin American art collections and programming. In 2016, the museum received a donation from the Chicago-based Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation that funded a full-time curator position devoted to Spanish colonial art as well as a long-term loan agreement for many Spanish colonial paintings from the Thoma Foundation’s collection.
Attributed to Cristóbal Lozano, Rosa de Salazar y Gabiño, Countess of Monteblanco and Montemar Peru, c. 1763, oil on canvas. Courtesy the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin.
