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With essays by Thomas Cummins, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Kenneth Mills, Hiroshige Okada, and Ramón Mujica Pinilla. Exhibition organised by Bernard Barryte.

This is an exclusive overview on South American religious painting from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century, an examination of the art that emerged in South America in parallel with the reciprocal assimilation and transformation of the respective cultures of different civilisations and peoples.
The amount of existing literature in English on painting during South America’s Vice Regal period is surprisingly poor. Published in association with the Cantor Center for the Visual Arts of Stanford University, this exhibition catalogue explores one aspect of art history that is little known but which has become increasingly of interest – for its energy and originality – to students, scholars, collectors and the public in general.
Although South American painting received its initial impetus from artists originating from Italy, Spain and Flanders, these artists were quickly outnumbered by the natives who in a short space of time assimilated the new techniques and themes, becoming masters in the decoration of churches and public buildings. The most well known is the School of Cuzco, but other regional styles developed. With examples of Italian, Flemish, Spanish, Creole, Metis and Indian production, the 56 paintings from the Thoma Collection — published here for the first time — offer a fascinating and authentic overview of the various schools of painting that developed in the vast regions of South America’s Vice Regal, areas that subsequently became actual countries: Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.

Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt is curator of the Thoma Collection and author of several publications including The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art (1994). She organised “The Arts of Latin America 1492-1825”, an exhibition of 360 objects for the autumn 2006 programme at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which then moved to the Royal Academy of Art in London.

Kenneth Mills is author of Idolatry and its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation, 1640-1750 (1997) and is professor of history at the University of Toronto.

Thomas da Costa Kaufmann, is professor of art history at Princeton University, and is renowned for his studies in the baroque art and architecture of Central Europe, the area from which missionaries exported certain stylistic and iconographic features to South America.

Thomas Cummins is the eminent author of many books and essays, and is currently professor in Pre-Columbian and Columbian art history at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University.

Ramón Mujica Pinilla teaches at the University of San Marcos in Lima. He has published numerous essays and books; in particular the series of richly illustrated books of essays entitled El Barroco Peruano.

Hiroshige Okada is professor of art history at the University of Fukui in Japan.

Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University September 20–December 31, 2006
Tucson Museum of Art January 20–April 29, 2007
Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Santurce May 24– August 5, 2007
University of Toronto Art Center September 4– December 9, 2007
Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin  January 19– March 18, 2008