The LACMA, the most important museum in Los Angeles County, claims Hispanic art from the colonial era in its latest exhibition, a period that revolutionized painting, fashion and decoration by uniting three cultures — European, pre-Columbian and Asian — in each piece. 

LACMA’s exhibition Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 features over 90 works from the museum’s notable collection of Spanish colonial art in a range of media—paintings, sculptures, textiles, and decorative arts. 

Among the exhibition’s highlights are several new acquisitions on view for the first time, including the monumental Pietà (c. 1720) by the painter Melchor Pérez Holguín, which was recently restored. Referred to as the “Golden Brush,” Pérez Holguín was regarded as one of the most important painters in Potosí, Bolivia, (then part of the viceroyalty of Peru) in his own day and beyond, according to Unframed.

LACMA’s exhibition Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 emphasizes the complex dynamics that led to the creation of these stunning artworks, underscoring the generative power of Spanish America and its central position as a global crossroads.

EFE Via Reuters