Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici

This exhibition represents the first serious effort to reposition the history of Mexican painting during the 18th century, a vibrant period marked by major stylistic changes and the invention of new iconographies.

Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici is a groundbreaking exhibition devoted to a particularly rich period in the history of Mexican painting, marked by major stylistic developments and the invention of fascinating new iconographies. The exhibition presents more than 120 works, many of which have never been shown publicly and were especially restored for this exhibition, contributing to a lasting understanding of Mexican painting and trans-Atlantic artistic connections in the 18th century. The seven themes—Great Masters, Master Story Tellers, Paintings of the Land, The Power of Portraiture, The Allegorical World, and Imagining the Sacred—explore the painters’ great inventiveness and the varying contexts in which they created their works. The exhibition represents the first and most serious effort to date to reposition the history of 18th-century painting in Mexico and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication, with scholarly essays written by the leading experts in the field. Co-organized with Fomento Cultural Banamex, Mexico City, the exhibition will subsequently travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.