The Meadows Museum will premiere this summer an exhibition with 63 unpublished paintings of Latin American colonial art

The Museo Meadows (Dallas) will host the world premiere of the exhibition from August 23, 2026 to January 24, 2027 ‘Spectacles of Power and Faith: Latin American Colonial Art from the Thoma Foundation’, composed of 63 paintings from the 17th to 19th centuries, many of them publicly exhibited for the first time.

The exhibition brings together works from the Art Collection of the Spanish Americas of the Thoma Foundation, formed by patrons Carl and Marilynn Thoma, and includes large devotional canvases, portraits and paintings on copper made between 1600 and 1850 in the current territories of Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador.

As explained by the director of the Meadows Museum, Amanda W. Dotseth, the exhibition brings the artistic tradition of early modern Latin America to an institution recognized for its collection of peninsular Spanish art and represents the first presentation of the Thoma Foundation’s Art Collection of the Spanish Americas at SMU and in North Texas.

The works reflect the political power of the Spanish Empire and the role of the Catholic Church in the region, while showcasing the creativity of indigenous, European and African artists who worked in the main urban centers of Latin America during the colonial era.

Among the pieces on display is a portrait of the young Caracas woman Petronila Méndez, made in 1763 by the free Afro-descendant artist Diego Antonio de Landaeta, considered by the organizers a testimony of the social and cultural diversity of colonial Venezuela and the presence of Afro-descendant artists in Spanish America.

The exhibition is divided into seven thematic sections: ‘Saints’, ‘American Virgins’, ‘Spain in the Americas’, ‘Jewels’, ‘Art in sacred spaces (La Capilla)’, ‘Everyday life at home (El Salón)’ and ‘Teaching faith’, which analyze the different functions played by art in colonial society.

Besides, will have an immersive installation that will recreate the atmosphere of a chapel through music and aromas to bring the visitor closer to the original context in which these works were contemplated.

The associate professor of Art History at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts and co-curator of the exhibition, Adam Jasienski, has highlighted that Latin American colonial painting constitutes “one of the most innovative and captivating artistic traditions of the early modern period“and has pointed out that the works show how American artists transformed European models by adapting them to the local histories, available materials and devotional practices of each region.

Co-curated by Jasienski and Verónica Muñoz-Nájar, associate curator of Art of the Spanish Americas at the Thoma Foundation, the exhibition will later travel to the Princeton University Art Museum, where it can be visited from February 27 to August 1, 2027, and to the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame, between August 24 and December 19 of that same year.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a 300-page bilingual illustrated catalogue, in English and Spanish, will be published, published by the Meadows Museum and Ediciones El Viso, which will bring together six essays by specialists in Latin American colonial art along with reproductions of the 63 paintings on display.