El Museo Del Barrio

Caribbean and Latin American Traditional Arts Series Part I
Curated by Fatima Bercht

This exhibition will feature 45 santos de palo (saints made of wood) from El Museo del Barrio's permanent collection of santos, one of the country's finest. The majority of these works were created by traditional, self-taught Puerto Rican carvers-- santeros--of rural, pre-industrial Puerto Rico between approximately 1850 and 1940.
These colorful, wooden sculptures represent saints, holy figures, and legends of popular Catholicism. An important folk tradition of Puerto Rico, the carved images are imbued with the saint's spirit, which can beinvoked through devotion and prayer. Puerto Rican Santos de Palo will explore three main themes:

The historical and cultural background of traditional Santos carving
The story of santos and how, since the late 1940s, they have been transformed from religious objects to collectibles
Popular devotions and important saints.

The permanent collection exhibition, audience diversification and public programs related to the Caribbean and Latin American Traditional Art Series are made possible by a generous grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Museum Collections Accessibility Initiative. Additional support has been provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, and Avon Products Foundation.

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