Modernistas: Discovery & Inspiration

Drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, this installation explores the visual relationship between paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by modern Mexican artists to centuries-old sculptures by Olmec, Maya, Nayarit, and other Indigenous artists of the past.

Following the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution, artists embraced their independence and discarded their colonial past in search of a new identity that would define what it meant to be both modern and Mexican. European and American modern art movements of the early 20th century certainly influenced these artists but, it was the archeological excavations and discoveries of their Pre-Columbian era that revealed to them the creative power and strength of Mexico’s past.

The newly discovered temple ruins and the artifacts unearthed during this time proved influential to these artists. The geometric colored forms in Gunter Gerzso’s paintings seem to float in a mysterious space suggesting unknown chambers reminiscent of ancient ruins, and in Fermin Revueltas’ painting, contemporary farmers pour corn into the same large oval grain storage cribs as those used by the Aztecs. Several of the Modernistas’ on view here, also became avid collectors of Pre-Columbian art including Gerzso and Rufino Tamayo, who amassed a large collection that he later donated to his native state of Oaxaca. By re-discovering and embracing their Indigenous past, these modern artists found the inspiration they sought to forge a new cultural identity.