Featured Art Exhibition: 'Journeys to New Worlds' at Philadelphia Museum of Art

This week's featured art exhibition is 'Journeys to New Worlds: Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Art from the Roberta and Richard Huber Collection' currently on view thru May 19 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

With a rare group of paintings, decorative arts, and sculptures from the collection of Roberta and Richard Huber, Journeys to New Worlds explores the artistic exchanges between Spain and Portugal and their colonies in the Americas and Asia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This unique combination of rich visual traditions offers viewers a glimpse into the fascinating history and global influence of Iberian colonial art.

The exhibition includes paintings by Melchor Pérez Holguín (c. 1665-after 1724) and Gaspar Miguel de Berrío (1706-after 1764), two prolific artists from the city of Potosí, Bolivia. Berrío's Our Lady of Mount Carmel with Bishop Saints of 1764 displays the artist's ability to present European imagery in a new regional style, emphasizing sumptuous textiles and lush colors. Other paintings on view feature objects of popular devotion, among them the anonymously painted Our Lady of Pomata, which depicts a dressed sculpture of the Virgin Mary housed in a sanctuary on the shores of Lake Titicaca, Peru.

Potosí sits at the foot of the Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), known for its abundant silver mines, which funded the Spanish empire for many years. The mines also fueled a great metalworking tradition that produced decorative objects for church, public, and domestic use. Among the silver works included in this show are an eighteenth-century coquera (a box used for storing coca leaves) and an elaborately decorated altar plaque.

Our Lady of Pomata, a coquera, ivory sculptures and more from the Roberta and Richard Huber Collection. Sophisticated ivory sculptures created in the Iberian colonies in Asia (the Portuguese colonies of Goa, on the western shores of India, and Ceylon, the modern nation of Sri Lanka; as well as the Spanish-controlled Philippines) are another integral part of the Huber collection. These carved works depict Catholic themes, yet the refined, Asiatic features of the figures show the direct influence of native artistic traditions.

Roberta and Richard Huber began collecting in the 1970s, when the study of Iberian colonial art was in its infancy in the United States. They have purchased works over the years based on their own changing interests, enjoying the thrill of discovering new objects as much as the works themselves.

Embodying the passionate interests of two individuals, their collection is one of a handful focused on this material in the country. Journeys to New Worlds celebrates their enthusiasm and reflects the Philadelphia Museum of Art's continuing commitment to promoting the arts of Latin America.

'Journeys to New Worlds' is on view in the Exhibition Gallery, first floor, in the Perelman Building at 2525 Pennsylvania Ave.

Hours
Mondays: Closed
Tuesday through Sunday: 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Wednesday and Friday evenings: Closed

Tickets
Adults: $20
Seniors (65 & over): $18
Students (with valid ID): $14
Youth (13-18): $14
Children (12 & under): Free
Members Free

To learn more about the 'Journeys to New Worlds' exhibit, click here.

Photo and info courtesy of PMA.

Don't Miss a Broadway News Story Sign up for all the news on the Fall season, discounts & more...