Another Colonial Palace

Earlier on this trip I wrote about the Palace of Iturbide which is owned by Banamex (the Bank of Mexico) and which is the venue for art exhibits.  A few blocks away is another colonial palace, the Palace of the Counts of San Mateo de Valparaiso, which was built between 1769 and 1772.

In 1884 the mansion became the headquarters of the newly established National Bank of Mexico, and its descendent, Banamex, still owns the building.  In 2019 Banamex opened the building to the public as a museum called the Valparaiso Forum.  It contains 117 paintings owned by the bank.  Most of them are by Mexican artists, and they trace the nation's art from colonial times to the 20th century.  

Last week, I visited this new museum.  This is the second museum in Mexico City that I have encountered where photography is not allowed with cameras but is permitted with cellphones.  (This is supposedly to discourage professional photography.  I consider it rather ridiculous since the quality of high-end cellphone cameras has reached a level where some professional photographers are using them.)   I used my phone, but I find it very awkward to hold it steady as I click a photo.  As a result most of the pictures that I took are blurry.  I will post those that came out well.

On the ground floor there was a special exhibit of "alebrijes", the fanciful sculptures of creatures that have become a well-known form of Mexican folk art.  Those in this exhibit were all done by Pedro Linares, the 20th century artist who invented the art form.  Linares specialized in "cartonería" or papier-mache figures.  The "alebrijes" were supposedly inspired by hallucinations of bizarre animals that he had while suffering from a high fever caused by peritonitis.

The upper floor contains the museum's collection of paintings.

A portrait of the 17th century poetess Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the most important literary figure of the colonial era in Spanish America.

A 19th century portrait of two upper-class brothers

"Costumbrismo" was a 19th century genre which depicted everyday scenes, such as this depiction of a Mexican market.

A still life painted by Frida Kahlo

Although most everyone has heard of Frida Kahlo, she was not the first Mexican woman to gain international recognition in the art world.  That distinction belongs to María Izquierdo who painted this still life.  Izquierdo was a favorite student of Diego Rivera (the husband of Kahlo) at the National Academy of Fine Arts, and, in 1930, she was the first Mexican woman to have her work exhibited in the United States.