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LATIN
AMERICAN STUDIES AT UNM
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The Graduate Program (both Masters and
Ph.D.) in Art History at the University of New Mexico ranks among
the top three or four nationally in the study of art, culture, and
politics from Latin America. A major reason is the unsurpassed number
of graduate faculty lines committed to this area by a department
that includes ten full-time art historians. The faculty members
in fields focused on art from Latin America, all of whom are affiliated
with UNM’s internationally recognized Latin
American & Iberian Institute, are as follows:
In addition to these faculty members, who have published numerous
books and articles in the field, there are a remarkable number of
invaluable resources – including a virtually unparalleled
collection of rare books, unpublished archives, prints, and photographs
– in the UNM Library System
and its University Art Museum.
Foremost among these holdings is the Slick Collection of Posters
and Prints from Latin America, some 10,000 strong, that includes
one of the three most comprehensive sets in the country of silkscreen,
as well as photo-offset, posters from Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and
Puerto Rico. Only the Library of Congress and the Center for the
Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles have larger and more
important collections.
Similarly,
the University Art Museum and the Center
for Southwest Research at UNM together house over 500 linocuts
and lithographs by the Taller de Gráfica Popular
of Mexico (1937-1977), along with scores of engravings by Mexican
printmaker José Guadeloupe Posada. The TGP collection is
the second largest in the US, and it encompasses several entire
portfolios, such as the 1947 Estampas de la Revolución
Mexicana, in addition to the rare TGP book Libro negro
del terror Nazi (1945). Moreover, the Center for Southwest
Research has on microfilm the unpublished archives of the Taller
de Gráfica Popular, covering all existing correspondence,
as well as related documents about patronage, group meetings, and
aesthetic aims from 137-1960. Further complimenting the huge print
collection at UNM are the lithographs by contemporary artist from
Latin America like Juan Sánchez, José Bedia, and Liliana
Porter found at the Tamarind
Institute of Lithography at UNM, the most famous institute in
the world devoted exclusively to producing lithographs. Overall,
the University Art Museum and the Tamarind Institute possess almost
4,000 prints from all periods in the history of print media.
The photography collection housed both
in the Zimmerman Library and in the University Art Museum is also
extensive, numbering more than 5,000 in the former and 6,000 in
the latter. Among the hundreds of rare photos from Latin America
are works that range from those by Tina Modotti and Agustín
Casasola to those by Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Luis González
Palma. This collection of photography within the University Art
Museum ranks among the finest in the nation. Added to these campus
holding in the visual arts are other exceptional artworks from Latin
America in various media, such as Spanish Colonial Period paintings
like Juan Correa’s Mary Magdalene (1680) in the University
Art Museum or Jesús Guerro Galván’s imposing
fresco painting, Unity of the Americas (1942-43) on the
east wall of Scholes Hall or Luiz Jimenez's commanding public sculpture
Fiesta Dancers (1996), which is located on Cornell Mall
in front of the Fine Arts Center.
The combined library holdings from Latin America and Iberia at
the Zimmerman Library of UNM are recognized worldwide as one of
the three best in the US, along with those at Bancroft at the University
of California, Berkeley and the Benson at the University of Texas,
Austin. The great strength of UNM in this area first emerged in
the 1930s with acquisition by UNM of two eminent private libraries,
those of Paul Van de Velde and Thomas B. Catron. Comprising more
that 20,000 volumes from Mexico, Spain, and Portugal, these two
libraries today still form the core of Zimmerman’s rare and
specialized book holdings from Ibero-America, which in total numbers
more that 450,000 books, pamphlets, and periodicals. They are both
particularly rich in books about Mexico’s political history,
anthropology, and religious history.
Other significant collections of Ibero-American
Materials in the Center for Southwest Research within Zimmerman
Library at UNM are as follows:
1. The Turpen Collection of Primary Sources about the Mexican
Revolution: over 6,000 in total.
2. The José Toribio Medina Collection—1st
editions written or edited by Medina and puiblished through the
Ercilla and Elzeviriana Presses.
3.
The Latin American Travel Narratives Collection –
Accounts published from colonial times to 1900.
4. The Mexican Bookplate Collection – Individual
and institutional bookplates from the late 18th century to the early
20th century.
5. The Oaxacan Research Collection – Rare Oaxacan
newspapers and magazines (1840s to the 1930s), as well as Indian
grammars, historical treatises, political broadsides, and unpublished
manuscripts by authors like Antonio Peñafiel and Manuel Martínez
Gracida. It gives an expansive portrait of life in this region from
the pre-Columbian period through the early 20th century.
6. The Collection of Maxmilian-French Intervention Materials
– Publications from 1861-1867 by Mexican, French, North
American, Austrian, and German authors, supplemented by manuscripts,
political ephemera, photographs, and newspapers.
7. The Collection of Mexican and Luso-Brazilian Almanacs and
Candarios – Yearbooks from the 19th and 20th century.
8. New Mexico Archives & Spanish Colonial Documents Collection
– Primary resources in reproduction from various Spanish and
Mexican archives, covering the civil and ecclesiastical administration
of the Viceroyalities of Peru and New Spain from the 16th century
to the 19th century.
9. Columbian Quincentary Archive – Primary and secondary
sources on 1992 anniversary.
10. Brazilian Small Press Collection – Materials
since 1940, including 5,000 examples of the cordel.
Among
the other notable materials at the Zimmerman Library of UNM are
several collections of personal papers compiled by scholars while
doing research in Latin America. They include the following:
1. The Personal Papers of France V. Scholes – Consists
of Scholes’ correspondence with distinguished Latin American
historians and anthropologists, covering topics about the ethno-history
of early colonial Mexico.
2. The Personal Papers of Margaret Randall – Consists
of primary sources from her time in Mexico in the 1960s, Cuba in
the 1970s, and Nicaragua in the 1980s, along with materials about
the efforts of the Reagan Administration to deport her from the
US for political reasons during the 1980s. Many documents relate
to her career as a poet.
3. The Personal Papers of David Craven – Consists
of around 200 rare books, catalogues, and pamphlets as well as unpublished
manuscripts from the Sandinista years in Nicaragua, which the author
collected while doing research in that Central American country.
There is a smaller collection of materials relating to Cuba in the
1980s, based both on his research there and on his work as a translator
for Cuba’s most well-known art critic Gerardo Mosquera.
Recently, since a trip by Dr. Russell Davidson of Zimmerman Library
to Nicaragua in the 2002, there has been a concerted effort to bolster
the holdings of UNM in Central American, especially Nicaraguan,
literature about art, culture, and politics. A net result has been
the acquisition of such rare volumes as a complete set of Ventana,
the Cultural Supplement of Barricada, the official newspaper
of the Sandinista National Liberation Front from the early 1980s
until the mid-1990s. UNM is now the only institution in the US with
a complete set of Ventana. Other rare volumes have also
been added through a convenio between the Universidad
Centroamericana in Managua and the University of New Mexico.
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