Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This 1978 article was published in El Nacional to inform the Venezuelan public about Mercedes Pardo’s exhibition at Museo de Arte Moderno de México (MAM). The subheading introduces the text by the director of the MAM, Fernando Gamboa, [...]

This document includes the text of the catalogue and the program of lectures and film screenings related to the exhibition, Posada: Printmaker to the Mexican People. The catalogue opens with “Corrido of the Coming of Don José Guadalupe Posada to [...]

As coordinator of the art integration project Centro Médico Nacional [National Medical Center], Fernando Gamboa left evidence of his aesthetic ideas relating to the history of medicine and public health. In his notes, the curator held forth on the [...]

To Fernando Gamboa, the contemporary Mexican painters are not imitators of ancient art; rather their intention is to recreate the past in modern terms. In the Mexican past, they found formal inspiration for creating their own language that resulted [...]

This is a typewritten draft, with several corrections, of a discussion on mural painting. Fernando Gamboa describes it as an explanatory identity document, and acknowledges the great importance and significance—in the history of Mexico and the [...]

In this document, we find a synopsis of the prologue and the four episodes in the film Raíces [Roots], shot by the filmmaker Benito Alazraki in 1954 with Fernando Gamboa as art director. Based on four indigenous stories adapted from El diosero, by [...]

This document is the script for the documentary Pintura Mural Mexicana [Mexican Mural Painting], to be produced by Manuel Barbachano Ponce’s company, Tele-producciones. The documentary was made in response to a request from the Instituto Nacional [...]

The twenty-one-page program presents Fernando Gamboa’s initial ideas on how to represent Mexico at the 1958 Belgium world exhibition, the same that centered on the theme of a “second Industrial Revolution”: one of nuclear energy. The curator [...]

This document is a “summary of the planning, organization and installation” contained in Fernando Gamboa’s curatorial script. It lists the pre-Hispanic, colonial, contemporary, and folk art works that were exhibited in the show’s different [...]

This article is a description of the likely subject matter of the Mexican Pavilion that was to be erected in 1958 for the Brussels World’s Fair. In certain cases the artistic works that might illustrate these pavilions are mentioned; slogans are [...]

In this article the author reflects upon the humanistic character he attributes to Mexican culture: “Mexico has shown itself to be a country that is especially receptive to assimilating this kind of culture and making its own contributions to it [...]

When no agreement could be reached to present the exhibition of Mexican art at the Petit-Palais in Paris, Fernando Gamboa was forced to find an alternative space. In this letter to Carlos Chávez, Gamboa informs him of the results of attempts to hold [...]

In this letter, Fernando Gamboa tells José (his last name is illegible) that the exhibition has been received positively. According to Gamboa there are those who have discovered an authentic pictorial path in Mexican painting, a possible escape from [...]

This interview consists of fourteen questions regarding the reception that the Mexican art exhibition experienced from the Parisian public. Fernando Gamboa believed that the event was a great opportunity for the Mexican people, and also was a great [...]

The questionnaire consists of six questions concerning the importance of social art in Mexico. The questions are as follows: Do you believe that the function of art in our time is to deliver an eloquent message of social content to the people? Do you [...]

Because of Mexico’s participation in the XXV Venice Biennale, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) received invitations from other European countries to mount an exhibition of Mexican art in 1950. Fernando Gamboa, INBA’s deputy director [...]

This article reports on the success of the exhibition of ancient and modern Mexican art that was presented in Paris and then shipped to Stockholm. In Fernando Gamboa’s opinion, the exhibition was a revelation. The Parisian press described it as the [...]

Fernando Gamboa, deputy director of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), responds to Tamayo by stating that the Instituto has always used a criterion of equality and reminds the artist that his painting has had all possible official support [...]

This text, attributed to Fernando Gamboa, defines how Mexican Art is to be classified in the coming decades: Pre-Hispanic, colonial, nineteenth-century, popular, and contemporary art. His department’s fundamental goal was to create a Museo Diná [...]