TWENTY CENTURIES OF MEXICAN ART
The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art
Volume 7, Number 2–3, May 1940
Florence Horn, Robert C. Smith
Florence Horn, Robert C. Smith: TWENTY CENTURIES OF MEXICAN ART. New York City: Museum of Modern Art, 1940. First edition [The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, Vol. VII, No. 2/3, May 1940]. Slim quarto. Photo illustrated stapled self wrappers. 16 pp. 12 black and white illustrations. Minor shelf wear and faint crease straight down the middle from a vintage folding. Interior unmarked and very clean. A very good or better copy.
7.5 x 10 staple-bound booklet with 16 pages devoted to the unprecedented, and still unparalleled, exhibition of 5,000 examples of ancient, colonial, popular, and modern Mexican art.
Under the direction of the then 32-year-old Nelson A. Rockefeller, president of the Museum of Modern Art, MOMA hosted "Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art," an unprecedented, and still unparalleled, exhibition of 5,000 examples of ancient, colonial, popular, and modern Mexican art, taking up the entire gallery space of the museum at the time, and even spilling out into the garden, where an open-air Mexican market was re-created and a series of giant pre-Columbian statues were installed.
The Mexico show was one of the first events to be presented in the new museum building on 53rd street, which had been built on the former site of John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s mansion. According to one reporter of the day, the colossal two-ton statute of Coatlicue, "she of the skirt of serpents"--Aztecan goddess of the earth and death--was erected on the spot that had earlier been the elder Rockefeller's den.
Ironically, the exhibition came to be in New York City partly as a result of the war. The massive collection, curated by Mexico's three greatest art historians and the painter Miguel Covarrubias, had originally been prepared for a museum in France, but then canceled due to the threat of ships carrying the art treasures being attacked at sea. Diego Rivera told a MOMA curator about the predicament of the beached art spectacle, which sparked the idea of an American presentation of the show.
In early 1940, the young Rockefeller had recently been appointed by President Roosevelt to be coordinator of the new Office of Inter-American Affairs, charged with the task of countering the "fascist influence" in Latin America. He quickly recognized the potential for a public relations windfall in a vast show, celebrating Mexico's arts in the U.S. cultural capital.
Within weeks, he was able to complete arrangements for a May opening of the show in personal negotiations with the Mexican president, Lazaro Cardenas. But Rivera subsequently declined an invitation to direct the show, on the grounds that he was supporting Cardenas' opponent in an upcoming election, Gen. Juan Andrew Almazan. Rivera had earlier clashed with Rockefeller over murals he had painted at Rockefeller Center, which the youthful magnate felt had "communistic tendencies," and later caused them to be destroyed.
The priceless cache of Mexican art treasures was loaded into a fleet of boxcars and accompanied on the rail journey from Mexico City north by a platoon of federales. At the border town of Laredo, Tex., the shipment was turned over to customs and museum officials, and later, put under the protection of, ironically, the Texas Rangers--historically known for their often brutal treatment of Mexicans.
One photograph from Laredo in the museum archives shows the slickly dressed MOMA executive vice president, John Abbott, standing with Capt. Bucky Edwards of the Rangers, both of them holding six-shooters.
By current art world mega-event standards, MOMA's show was uproariously festive and left an indelible imprint on the New York City of its day. Kaufmann's, a local furniture store, was selling "typical" Mexican bedroom and kitchen furniture, executed in high Rancho Grande kitsch style. In their showroom, they organized "Below the Rio Grande," a Mexican furniture exposition that featured a re-creation of the Empress Carlotta's bedroom.
Macy's even presented its own show of contemporary Mexican painting, and Kresge's five and dime exhibited a show of Mexican pottery.
"Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art" was also scheduled around a lengthy calendar of social and cultural events, including concerts by popular folk musicians and the contemporary composers Eduardo Hernandez Moncada, and Carlos Chavez and his orchestra.
All summer, the jacala-decked garden of the museum was a beehive of the New York social scene, and references to Mexico-themed museum parties featuring guests such as Greta Garbo, Paul Robeson, Edward Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, show up in the gossip pages of the city papers.
One columnist reports overhearing a woman "in a frilly pink evening dress" telling her husband she has just discovered an adorable new type of bird bath, staring at the reclining figure of the Mayan deity Chac Mool. The writer continues, "He explained in bored tones that the bowl in the center of the stone figure was used to catch the blood of the sacrificial victims."