When Archer Huntington was creating the Hispanic Society,
he was doing so at a moment when Spanish art was not in the other great collections
in New York the primary focus.
'Why do you want to study a dead culture?'
That gives you an idea of what the view of Spain was at that time and it was even worse
after the Spanish-American war.
That Spanish-American war put Spain and, interestingly, Latin American colonial culture
back on the radar-screen for America, and Mr. Huntington
was way ahead of that movement.
What Huntington did was completely new in New York.
He really brought the whole school the 'Siglo de oro' and then ultimately also
the art of Latin America together in a way that demonstrated
the extraordinary contribution of those schools to the History of Art.
If all of Spain were to disappear today it would still survive in the Hispanic Society.
The origin of the Hispanic Society
begins with a 12-year-old boy who travelled to Europe with his mother for the very first time
in 1882; and that boy was Archer Milton Huntington.
The visits to the Louvre and the British Museum made him absolutely fall in love with museums.
He even wrote in his diary that he would love to live in a museum.
He bought a book from an out-of-print-rare-book dealer and it was that book that actually
started his interest and passion for Hispanic culture.
He travelled to Spain several times but he actually spent ten years studying everything
he could on Spain before he travelled there for the first time.
Before he was even 30 years old he was working on a translation of the epic 'Poema del mío Cid'
which he did publish in three separate volumes.
He told his father that he did not want to manage the Newport ship-yards
and he then set about establishing plans for a museum and a library.
By 1900, at the age of 30, his father died and with the death of his father
he had a lot more resources and he could actually start planning what he really had in vision for his life.
Archer Huntington had in mind a separate museum.
The whole idea was to have the entire focus of one institution on Spanish art
and its legacy across the world.
When the time came in 1904 that he felt that he was ready to establish the Hispanic Society,
land was purchased at 155th street and Broadway, in Upper Manhattan.
He probably chose the location because he was familiar with it maybe through his mother
because his mother already owned a portion of the land that is today the Audubon Terrace
and the other motivation to come to this part of Manhattan
was most likely due to the number one subway-line opening in 1904
that ran all the way up to the Hispanic Society at that time.
The interior of the Hispanic Society was based on, it's very distinctive, it is all in fired terracotta.
The designs are based on the Vélez Blanco patio that is today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He married his second wife who was Anna Hyatt
and Ana Hyatt Huntington had in her earlier life
been an extremely successful woman sculpture in the United States.
She began work on the monumental statue of el Cid
which dominates the terrace and other designs were created to complement all the sculptures out there.
Through probably Sorolla it came to the attention of Alfonso XIII, and Alfonso XIII realized
the importance of the Hispanic Society as a way to foster an image of Spain,
a positive image of Spain abroad
for its culture and one of the fruits of this is that in 1917,
during World War I, the Royal Collections of Tapestry were exhibited at the Hispanic Society
and this is a testament to the relationship between Alfonso XIII and Huntington.
Mr. Huntington sponsored two separated exhibition-campaigns for Sorolla in the United States.
The first one was in 1909 where 168,000,000 people visited the Society in February
in order to see Sorolla's works.
Sorolla's paintings were so full of life and so bright
it literally changed the impression in New York of Spain at that time.
In fact it even wrote in the press, they said that, you know,
'brought Spain back up to an estimable position'. It had changed the view of it.
His collecting seriously for the museum began around 1900
and he had already studied everything he possibly could through photographs, at that time.
Everyone has to remember that there were not colored art books like there are today,
it was much more difficult study material
and there was a lot less published on Spanish art so you really had to be familiar with it.
He visited the Prado extensively, studied everything he could
and he personally really selected everything that he bought.
From the very beginning he had a specific plan on how he wanted to collect
and that was basically breaking all creative facets of Hispanic culture
into categories and he was going to collect everything in the decorative arts.
He collected prints and photographs.
He collected medals, he collected paintings,
he collected sculpture and for the library his great interest was really
on rare books and manuscripts.
The photographs that the Hispanic Society commissioned directly from its staff members,
they reflected first-hand what Huntington wanted ‒the genuine Spain.
The most famous of the photographers was Ruth Anderson.
The photography collection, just like the prints, is interrelated with the other holdings,
in this case with the museum department, in other cases with the library
and it shows again how the unity of the vision Huntington had
or what he wanted documented is visible throughout the whole collection.
In 1902 he had the fortune, good fortune,
of being able to buy the library of the Marqués de Jerez de los Caballeros in Seville
which was the most important private library in Spain at that time focused on Early Spanish Literature,
which also had a few manuscripts in it.
That really gave the originally core of the rare books and manuscripts collection.
Huntington developed a relationship with a rare-book dealer in Leipzig, Germany, Karl Hiersemann,
who was one of the major rare-book, manuscript-dealers in Europe
and it was that relationship that led to about ten years of collecting almost exclusively through Hiersemann.
Within a-ten-year period, about 1905 till 1914, the onset on World War I,
which stopped the relationship with Hiersemann, Huntington collected tens of thousands of manuscripts.
In fact, several hundreds of thousands of manuscripts though Hiersemann
and thousands and thousands of rare books which really built up
what the Hispanic Society's library collection is today.
'Where does the Hispanic Society rank or fit in the museum-world of New York?'
I would say it is probably a combination of the Frick Collection and the Morgan Library.
In other words, collections that are rarefied-focused and at the same time augmented
by great research centers of libraries, manuscripts and so forth.
Huntington had a general policy from early on of not collecting early art
directly out of Spain.
His views were that the work should stay where they were, they should not be taken out,
for as of other American collectors were buying directly out of Spain in the late 19th and early 20th century
but Huntington bought primarily from dealers in Paris, London and New York.
Where else will you find three works and great works by Velazquez in one institution?
There are very few museums in the world. Even the Louvre does not have three works by Velázquez.
One should not wonder, in fact, how it was possible in 1904 to create such a vast collection,
historical collection, of works from primarily Spain and Latin America.
One has to remember that the entire museum-history
is not much more than 200 years old,
so 1904 is pretty much in the middle point between the start of museums with the Louvre in 1793 and today.
So an entire century, the 20th century, was available for the acquisition of a great many works of art
that had not yet entered collections or museums
because museums were still pretty much in their adolescence at that time.
Over the past fifteen years we have had a particular focus on buying colonial Latin American works
to build up that collection, because when Huntington was collecting himself
there was very little on the market.
He did buy certain colonial things like Talavera Poblana pottery from Mexico,
but it was quiet limited otherwise.
Archer Huntington was a great philanthropist.
In fact he was a philanthropist to a fault to a certain extent
because by the time he died
he'd essentially given away everything.
His wife, Anna Hyatt Huntington, still had sufficient resources
to live comfortably to an old age,
but he had basically given everything away by that point.
He helped found three institutions in Spain:
the Casa de Cervantes, the Museo Romántico and the Casa-Museo de El Greco.
He had already been involved in a major way with other institutions in New York,
such as the American Museum of Natural History.
He sponsored a lot of scientific expeditions.
One was the expedition to Machu Picchu that led to the discovery of it.
Huntington really sought anonymity.
He did not want to create a foundation that wore his name for eternity
like the Rockefellers and the Fords and others.
He really was a true philanthropist that basically gave away the money
because he wanted it to go to his very specific good purpose, for the public good.
The wonders of this institution is its aura,
is the manner in which the works of art are represented.
The Hispanic Society Museum and Library is a collection
that could never be recreated today.
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