Making the invisible visible
Thirty years assembling an extraordinary legacy of pre-Columbian art.
Roberto Pérez Trespalacios
The Pérez Trespalacios Collection is the fruit of more than thirty years devoted to studying and seeking out works of art from the ancient American civilizations. It was born with the aim of bringing to a wide audience an artistic and cultural legacy whose extraordinary refinement remains, more than five centuries later, little known in Europe.
The collection invites us to discover a universe in which art went beyond the appearance of things to make the invisible visible. A symbolic and spiritual richness that even won the admiration of the artistic avant-gardes of the twentieth century.
Assembled from works that come from prestigious international institutions, some of which have featured in major exhibitions over the past fifty years, the collection aims to promote pre-Columbian art and to strengthen the cultural ties between Spain and the Americas, united by a shared history.
Institutions of provenance
- Metropolitan Museum of Art – Wasserman Collection, New York.
- Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Foundation, Illinois.
- Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio.
- Menninger Foundation Museum, Kansas.
- Bowers Museum, California.
- Drexel University Museum, Philadelphia.
- Tampa Museum of Art, Florida.
- Oakton Community College, Illinois.
International exhibitions
- Pre-Columbian Art from Middle America. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
- Man Eaters and Pretty Ladies. Early Art in Central Mexico from the Gulf to the Pacific, 1500 B.C. to 500 A.D. Montreal Museum of Art.
- Pre-Columbian Art in Southern Collections. Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama.
- Master Craftsmen of Ancient Peru. Hillwood Art Center, Long Island, New York.
- Ceremonial Sculpture of Ancient Veracruz. Hillwood Art Center, Long Island, New York.