El Alma del Pueblo: Spanish Folk Art and its Transformation in the Americas

This major exhibition, curated by Dr. Marion Oettinger, vividly documented the deep and long-lasting influence that Spanish folk art exerted on the popular aesthetic of the Americas, displaying ceremonial objects, masks, and elements of private devotion like family altars and votive paintings; decorative folk art objects of diverse media; and numerous domestic objects.

El Alma Del Pueblo was organized by the San Antonio Museum of Art. It encompassed a wide range of folk art made for ceremonial, utilitarian, recreational and decorative purposes: regional pottery, maritime folk art, votive offerings, household saints, religious sculpture, portrait paintings, popular graphics, furniture, decorated household implements, and wealth of other material. The exhibition concentrated on works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to demonstrate the continuing vitality of Spanish vernacular traditions in Spain and the Americas. The exhibition also recognized the other major cultural influences—Native American, African, and Asian—that fed the Spanish roots of Latin folk art in the Americas to produce the unique folkways of the Western Hemisphere.

To enhance understanding of the context in which folk art was used, the objects in the exhibition were complemented by contextual photographs, text panels, and wall labels in both Spanish and English.

The catalogue Folk Art of Spain and the Americas: El Alma del Pueblo published by the San Antonio Museum of Art accompanied the exhibition and is available for consultation.

^{El Alma del Pueblo was made possible by the Ford Motor Company and presented under the grand patronage of Excemo Antonio Oyarzabal, Ambassador of Spain to the United States, with the generous assistance of the Ministry of Culture of Spain and the Tourist Office of Spain. Iberia Airlines is the official carrier of the exhibition.}