Museo de Arte de Ponce

The Museo de Arte de Ponce (MAP) is an art museum located on Avenida Las Américas in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Founded in 1959 and opened in its current building in 1965, it is the largest art museum in the Caribbean and has been called one of the best in the Americas. The museum houses approximately 4,500 works of art distributed among fourteen galleries, with particular distinction as home to one of the most important Pre-Raphaelite collections in the Western Hemisphere. It was the first museum in Puerto Rico accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, and in 2021 it received the National Medal for Museum and Library Service.

The museum originated in 1956 when industrialist and philanthropist Luis A. Ferré traveled to Europe, visiting museums and exhibitions and acquiring various European art pieces, including many Pre-Raphaelite works. Encouraged by these acquisitions, he conceived of establishing a museum in Ponce, his birthplace. With guidance from Julius S. Held, specialist on Rubens and professor of Art History at Barnard College and Columbia University, and René Taylor, art and architecture enthusiast and professor at the University of Granada, Yale, and Columbia, Ferré compiled a collection based on scholarly value rather than popularity. Ferré later recalled that scholars and critics dismissed his purchases as kitsch.

On 3 January 1959, Ferré opened the museum at a house at 70 Cristina Street in the Ponce Historic Zone, with an inaugural exhibition of 72 works. Some of these original paintings remain on display. In 1962, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation donated 15 paintings to the growing collection.

Fearing fire damage to the Cristina Street building, Ferré acquired land on Las Américas Avenue and commissioned architect Edward Durell Stone to design a permanent structure. The first stone was laid on 23 April 1964, and the museum officially opened at its current location on 28 December 1965. By 1989, the collection had grown to 500 pieces with an estimated value of $50 million.

The museum closed from 2008 to 2010 for major renovations and expansion, reopening on 13 November 2010 for its 50th anniversary celebration. During the closure, works were exhibited at San Juan's Plaza Las Américas and loaned to institutions worldwide. The $30 million project increased the museum's size by more than 40% and added a new annex. The thoroughfare was subsequently renamed Luis A. Ferré Boulevard in honor of the founder.

The Museo de Arte de Ponce houses the most important collection of European art in Latin America, with works spanning from the 14th to the 20th century. The Financial Times of London has described its holdings as one of the most distinguished private collections in the Western Hemisphere outside the United States. The collection encompasses Italian Baroque, British Pre-Raphaelite, Spanish Golden Age, and contemporary Latin American art.

The Spanish painting collection is particularly strong, representing one of the best collections of Spanish painting in Latin America, with works by Pedro Machuca, Luis de Morales, El Greco, Zurbarán, José de Ribera, Antonio de Pereda, Claudio Coello, Murillo, and Goya. Italian Baroque is represented by artists including Sisto Badalocchio, Guido Reni, Bernardo Strozzi, Francesco Furini, Luca Giordano, Sebastiano Ricci, Giovanni Battista Langetti, and Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, plus a panel by Luca di Tommè from the K Foundation donation. Dutch and Flemish works include pieces by Pieter Aertsen, Abraham Janssens, Rubens, Frans Snyders, Theodoor Rombouts, Van Dyck, David Teniers the Younger, Nicolaes Maes, and Cornelis van Haarlem. French art ranges from Philippe de Champaigne, Claude Lorrain, and Charles Le Brun to Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Gustave Moreau, and William Adolphe Bouguereau. German works include Lucas Cranach the Elder and Angelika Kauffmann.

The museum's signature work is Flaming June by Frederic Lord Leighton, which Ferré purchased for less than $1,000 in Amsterdam in 1960, though another account states he paid $6,000 in London. Ferré considered it his favorite piece. Another major holding is The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, the final masterpiece of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, begun in 1881 and left unfinished at the artist's death in 1898. Ferré acquired this enormous painting for 1,600 British guineas in 1963.

The Pre-Raphaelite collection, one of the most important in the Western Hemisphere, includes major works by John Everett Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In 2009, both Flaming June and The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon were loaned to Tate Britain during the museum's refurbishment, while other works traveled to the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

The museum also holds British works by Thomas Gainsborough and the Roy Lichtenstein sculpture Pinceladas en Vuelo (Brushstrokes in Flight), a 28-foot-high aluminum structure created in 1984 that was considered the largest public art work in Latin America and the Caribbean. This was the first Lichtenstein sculpture received by a museum as a donation, contributed by the artist's heirs' foundation.

The current museum building was designed by American architect Edward Durell Stone and opened on 28 December 1965. Its most distinctive architectural feature is the hexagonal galleries, an idea suggested by Ferré himself, which allow natural light to enter through the corners to illuminate exhibitions. The original structure contained 14 galleries, two gardens, and an amphitheater, with a main entrance featuring bifurcated stairs.

The 2008-2010 renovation and expansion added a 37,745-square-foot annex designed to house an educational space, an art history library, the Don Luis A. Ferré Archives, a conservation laboratory, artwork storage, a museum shop, a restaurant, and administrative offices. After expansion, the total square footage reached 77,745 square feet. The project was necessitated by the passage of time and damage from hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico in the 1990s, with the Ferré family directing the renovation efforts.

The Museo de Arte de Ponce is located on Avenida Las Américas, now officially designated Luis A. Ferré Boulevard, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, facing the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. The museum charges admission to the public, though the majority of its income derives from donations from individuals and companies, primarily of Puerto Rican origin. Some donors contribute to art acquisitions, while others support ordinary operating and maintenance expenses. The museum maintains its website at http://www.museoarteponce.org for visitor information.