Selections from The Mexican Museum's Permanent Collection

The Museum’s Pre-Hispanic collection, encompassing Mesoamerican, Central American and South American cultures, span 2,500 years of history. Over 2,000 artifacts offer fine examples of vessels, ceremonial objects, tools, body ornaments and reliefs from major ancient cultures including Teotihuacan, Mayan, Zapotec, Nayarit, Colima and ancient Peruvian civilizations.

Colonial art from the 18th and 19th centuries include carved wooden santos, oil paintings, works on tin, metal jewelry, ecclesiastical textiles, and decorative arts. There are over 1,500 objects in the colonial art holdings.

With over 5,000 objects, the popular and folk art collection represents the largest component of The Mexican Museum’s holdings. Spanning the 20th century to the present, the collection contains fine examples of handcrafted artifacts from all the major folk art regions of Mexico.

The museum’s 20th century fine art collections from Mexico and Latin America contain over 2,500 objects including paintings, sculptures and works on paper. Mexican masters such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Rufino Tamayo, Rosa and Miguel Covarrubias are well represented in the collection. The works on paper collection is historically rich and contains lithographs, serigraphs, etchings, photographs, posters, rare books, portfolios and archival material.

Emphasizing the art of the present, the contemporary collection of Chicano art numbers over 1,000 works including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and ephemera. Nationally and internationally acclaimed Chicano artists such as Alejandro Colunga, Enrique Chagoya, Rupert Garcia, Carmen Lomas Garza, Ester Hernandez, Patssi Valdez, Gronk, and hundreds of other emerging and accomplished artists, working here and abroad, are represented in the museum’s ever-growing Chicano and Contemporary Mexican-American art holdings.