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The Mexican Soul Revealed through Art

AUBURN, Ala.- The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art will display selections of modern Mexican art from the permanent collection from March 7–May 30, 2009. On view in the Noel and Kathryn Dickinson Wadsworth Gallery, El Alma Mexicana/The Mexican Soul features paintings, prints, photographs and decorative arts. Bilingual exhibition labels will be provided.

El Alma Mexicana borrows a theme from the 1940 groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art, which conveys in graphic form the essence of Mexican art and the soul of its people. Drawn from the museum’s expanding collection of modern and contemporary Mexican art, the exhibition presents many of Mexico’s most significant artists, such as Leopoldo Méndez, José Guadalupe Posada, Diego Rivera and Francisco Zuñiga, along with important European and American artists who were attracted to and found inspiration in Mexico’s culture and art, including Leonora Carrington, Howard Cook and William Spratling.

Modern Mexican art reveals a rich cultural heritage, influenced by its pre-Columbian forebears, European academic and avant-garde practices, domestic folk traditions and turbulent political history. These elements combine to produce art that whispers of a nation, displaying their struggles and triumphs through art.

The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, opened in 2003, is Alabama’s only university art museum. Serving as the gateway to Auburn University, the museum is home to more than 100 Audubon prints, a collection of more than 40 rare Tibetan bronzes that date from the 14th-20th century and works by such important American artists as Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe and Lyonel Feininger. In the rotunda of the museum hangs a three-tiered, hand-blown glass chandelier created by internationally-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly. The beauty continues on the grounds of the museum with fifteen acres of gardens and walking paths featuring the eleven and a half foot tall brass sculpture, Spinoff, created by Auburn alumna Jean Woodham.

CONTACT: Colleen Bourdeau
(334) 844-7075
cbourdeau@auburn.edu