Pre-Hispanic and Folk Art

Although the Dolores Olmedo Museum is best known for its collection of paintings by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Olmedo was also an avid collector of pre-Hispanic and folk art.

Interspersed among the galleries of Rivera paintings are showcases filled with some of the more than 900 pieces of pre-Hispanic art that she collected.

As I mentioned before, she was very fond of "xolos", Mexican hairless dogs, and she collected earthenware figures of dogs from the ancient Colima culture of western Mexico.

Mayan incense burners

A monumental Mayan carving

A piece from the Zapotec culture

I assume that this was the kitchen in the original house.  It is decorated in a traditional style, and there are clay cooking pots.

A case filled with porcelain dinnerware

In the courtyard there were two "Trees of Life", large, elaborate clay pieces from the town of Metepec in the State of Mexico.

This one follows the original theme of "Trees of Life"... the Bible story of Adam and Eve.

Later artists created "Trees of Life" that have a wide variety of themes.  This one is a Day of the Dead tree with skeletons and skulls.

At the far end of the grounds is a building which I almost missed.  It contains some of Olmedo's extensive collection of Mexican handicrafts and folk art.  As I mentioned previously, Olmedo was an avid supporter of traditional Mexican culture, and she collected all things Mexican.

At the entrance, however, there was a grouping that I suspect was not a part of her collection, but something that was placed there to celebrate the World Cup games in Mexico.  It is a group of skeletons playing soccer.

Not all of the folk art is labeled.  I have seen enough Mexican handicrafts over the years that I could tell the origin of most of the pieces.

  Ceramic animal figures from the town of Tonalá in the state of Jalisco

The distinctive red glassware from Guadalajara, Jalisco

Masks from the state of Guerrero

"Cartonería" is the art of creating figures out of cardboard and papier mache.

A band of skeletal musicians of "cartonería"

Even though the eyebrows don't quite meet to form an unibrow, I think this skeleton is supposed to represent Frida Kahlo.

 Talavera pottery, a specialty of the city of Puebla

Two more "Trees of Life"

The famous black pottery from the town of San Bartolo de Coyotepec in the state of Oaxaca.

A clay jaguar figure from Amatenango del Valle in Chiapas.

Next we will begin to look at the museum's main claim to fame... its collection of paintings by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, unsurpassed in the world.

Hurray! Problem solved!

Yesterday I thought that my hobby of blogging had come to an end when I was not able to insert any more photos.  (It would be such a boring blog if I couldn't put pictures in my entries.  The beauty of Mexico... as well as other places I've visited... demands photos!!!)

As I explained in the previous blog post, I had read that you can upload unlimited photos as long as they do not exceed 2048 pixels in either length or width.  I always reduce the size of my pictures before uploading them to the blog.  So what's the problem?  However, I was looking at how many bytes they were, instead of paying any attention to the pixels.  Upon closer examination there were more pictures in the albums that exceeded the pixel size than I realized.  I guess I had just reached the limit of storage space because of it.

I went back and removed one of those photos from a recent post.  That's all it took.  I made that picture smaller, and I was able to put it back.  I went to the blog post that I had started yesterday, and I had no problem at all uploading photos.  (That post will appear tomorrow.)  I am just going to have to be very careful to always check the pixels because I am apparently right at the brink of the limit.

A reader named Troy, who had never commented before, wrote that if I were unable to find a fix, that he would try to help.  That was so kind of him.  Much appreciated!

So, the Retired Teacher is back in business and will continue blogging as long as I am still alive and kicking, or until blogging has become so obsolete that Google eliminates Blogger. 

Has My Blog Reached the End of the Road?

I have been writing this blog since October of 2013.  Over those years I have written over 4500 posts, and the last several years I have been averaging more than one post per day.  Yesterday I was preparing a blog entry to publish this morning.  I was writing about the Dolores Olmedo Museum, and I had many photos of items from the museum's collection to include.  Suddenly, about half way through the entry, I was unable to insert any more photos.  I tried and tried but I couldn't upload photos from my laptop's photo files.  Thinking it might be some glitch, I tried signing out of Google, and then signing back in.  I turned off the laptop and then turned it on again.  This morning I tried to upload again, but with no luck. 

I looked at my storage on Google, and I have only used only14% of the space.  However when I clicked on Photos, the pictures that were there were mostly, but not entirely, photos that I took with my cell phone.  (I do not like taking pictures with my phone, but if I do not have my camera with me, or if a museum does not permit photos with a camera, I occasionally use it.)  Also, some of those pictures that I took with the phone are not even photos that I uploaded onto the blog. 

Somehow, I don't even remember how, I found that the bulk of the pictures that I have published on the blog, are in Google's media manager albums.  There are more 25,000 photos.  Before I upload pictures to my blog, I always reduce them in size.  I read somewhere else that if your photos are less than 2048 pixels in width or length, that they do not count against your storage allotment. I looked at the size of my photos in the albums.  The vast majority of the pictures are less than that size.  I am going to see if I delete some of the ones that are over that size, if I will be able to insert photos once again.

Fingers crossed. Hopefully I will be able to fix this, and I will be able to continue posting as I have for the last thirteen years.  

The Museum Grounds

As I said previously, it will take several posts to cover the Dolores Olmedo Museum.  

Dolores Olmedo (1908 - 2002) was a wealthy, self-made businesswoman, something of an rarity in that era in Mexico.  She was passionate about Mexican culture and socialized with many Mexico City intellectuals and artists.  She was good friends with the Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo and collected their paintings.

A photograph of Dolores Olmedo at the entrance to the museum

A statue of Olmedo, based on a portrait that Rivera did of her

She is dressed in the traditional attire of a Tehuana, a woman from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

A statue of Diego Rivera on the museum grounds

The museum is housed in a late 16th century hacienda called "La Noria" in the Mexico City district of Xochimilco.  In 1962 Olmedo purchased the property, restored it and made it her home.  In 1994 she donated the hacienda and her collection of art as a museum.

The hacienda buildings and the surrounding gardens are beautiful.

Roaming the grounds there are many peacocks.

Olmedo was very fond of "xolos", the breed of dog also known as the Mexican hairless.  Throughout her life she kept "xolos" as pets.  After her death, the museum decided to honor her love of the breed by keeping six of the dogs in a spacious enclosure on the grounds.

The plaque reads -

"Following the example of my mother, teacher María Patiño Suárez widow of Olmedo, who always told me to share everything that you have with your fellow human beings, I leave this house with all my art collections, the product of the work of my entire life, for the enjoyment of the Mexican people."

In the following blog posts we will look at her art collections.

The Journey to the Museum

The Dolores Olmedo Museum is noted for its collection of paintings by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.  I visited the museum many years ago.  I'm not going to go back and search, but I think I visited before I had started writing this blog.  The museum has been closed for many years, and there were plans to move the collection to a more central location in Chapultepec Park.  However, Dolores Olmedo had stipulated in her will that her collection was not to be moved from the former hacienda that was her home.  After much wrangling, the museum was finally reopened earlier this year in its original location.  I have been meaning to go there, but I kept putting it off because it is quite a trek to get there.  It is located in the far southern borough of Xochimilco, and it takes an hour and a half to get there by public transportation.  Last week, however, I decided to go there.  The journey in itself is a bit of an adventure, utilizing three of the city's transportation networks.

I set off shortly before 11 AM, after rush hour was well over, and the buses and Metro would be less crowded.  I walked a couple of blocks to Insurgentes Avenue to the Poliforum Station, my closest stop to catch the Metrobus.  (If you have read the blog over the years, you know that the Metrobus is an articulated bus with its own dedicated lanes and stops.  There are seven lines running throughout the city.)

However, instead of taking Line 1 which travels the length of Insurgentes, I took Line 2 which after a couple of stops heads to the east.

I really timed it correctly, because my Metrobus was almost empty!  The pink seats at the front of the bus are reserved for women and small children.

I took the Metrobus for nine stops and got off at Xola.  I then walked a block and turned the corner to go to the Xola Station of Line 2 of the Metro.  (The Metro, as opposed to the Metrobus, is the subway system.  However, in this part of town it runs above ground.)  The Xola station is located on the busy Calzada Tlapan, a major thoroughfare heading south.  A few stations to the north is where the city government built the new "Floating Garden" that I discussed here last month.

Looking down at Calzada Tlalpan from the pedestrian bridge that leads to the Metro station.

I have mentioned before that the Metro stations along Line 2 were all renovated for the World Cup Games.

This new mural in the Xola Station is a rather abstract image of a palm tree.

The icon for the station is a palm.

(Image taken from the internet)

At one time there was a house not far from here that had a very tall palm tree in the courtyard which was a local landmark... hence the icon for the station today.

I was in luck once again, and found a seat on the Metro!

I took the Metro southbound all the way to the end of the line at the Tasqueña Station.  Tasqueña is a major transportation hub.  It is located near the southern bus terminal from where you can take buses to places such as Acapulco.  There are also connections here to a trolley route, and to my next leg of the journey, the "train ligero", the light rail line.

More new mural paintings in the station

I had no trouble at all finding my way to the light rail.

The light rail was completely renovated with new trains in time for the World Cup this summer.  (One of the stops along the route is the Azteca Stadium where the games were held.)  

The train runs all the way to Xochimilco, the far southern district that is famous for it canals.  Since those canals are the home to the salamander-like creature known as the "axolotl", it is appropriate that the trains are colorfully painted with images of those animals.

Since this is the beginning of the line, I had a seat.  The train is pleasant although it is slow and has many stops.  After fourteen stops (nearly to the end of the line) I got off at La Noria.  From there it was an eight minute walk to the museum.

 It was a journey of about an hour and a half, but I reached my destination without any problems.

The Dolores Olmedo Museum is an important museum, and I will devote several blog entries to it.