Hispanic Society of America facts for kids
Hispanic Society museum building on Audubon Terrace
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| Established | May 18, 1904 |
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| Location | New York City |
| Type | Art museum Research library |
| Collection size | 6,800 paintings 1,000 sculptures 175,000 photographs 250,000 books |
| Visitors | 20,000 |
| Public transit access | Subway:  at 157th StreetBus: Bx6, Bx6 SBS, M4, M5, M100 |
The Hispanic Society of America is a museum and reference library for the study of the arts and cultures of Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America, the Philippines, and Portuguese India. Despite the name, it has never functioned as a learned society.
Founded in 1904 by philanthropist Archer M. Huntington, the institution continues to operate at its original location in a 1908 Beaux Arts building on Audubon Terrace (at 155th Street and Broadway) in the lower Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City in the United States. A second building, on the north side of the terrace, was added in 1930. Exterior sculpture in front of that building includes work by Anna Hyatt Huntington and nine major reliefs by the Swiss-American sculptor Berthold Nebel, a commission that took ten years to complete. The Hispanic Society complex was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2012.
The museum and library have been closed since 2017 for a major renovation. The library and the Sorolla gallery are open by appointment.
Much of the collection is on loan to other institutions during this period.
Collections
The museum contains more than 18,000 works in every medium, ranging from prehistoric times to the 20th century. The collection includes important paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Goya, El Greco, and Joaquín Sorolla, among others. It also includes sculpture and architectural elements, furniture and metalwork, ceramics and textiles.
A major component of this museum is the Sorolla Room, which was reinstalled in 2010. It displays The Provinces of Spain, 14 massive paintings commissioned by Archer Huntington in 1911. Sorolla completed these works from 1913 to 1919. These paintings total more than 200 linear feet (61 m); they ring the large room and depict scenes from the regions of Spain.
The library contains more than 250,000 books; 200,000 documents; 175,000 photographs; and 15,000 prints. The rare books library maintains 15,000 books printed before 1700, including a first edition of Don Quijote. It also holds the manuscript Black Book of Hours Horae Beatae Virginis Mariae ad usum Romanum (circa 1458), one of only a handful of such works, and the enormous Map of the World (1526) by Juan Vespucio.
The Society has been described as "perhaps New York’s most misunderstood institution", because it was established to concentrate on Old Spain and its culture in its colonies.
Expansion and renovations
In April 2015 the society announced the appointment of Philippe de Montebello to chair the society's Board of Overseers and spearhead a major effort to roughly double the museum's size by renovating the vacant Beaux Arts building adjacent to the society's original museum building. It was formerly used by the Museum of the American Indian, which had moved years before to the US Custom House in Lower Manhattan.
Beginning January 1, 2017, the museum is closed for extensive renovations, although the library is open on a limited basis by appointment only. The $15 million project will replace the building's roof and lighting. Originally scheduled to reopen in the fall of 2019, the museum is still closed as of late 2020, in part because of effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the museum is closed, many of its works are being lent to other institutions. About 200 of the society's most important works were displayed from April through September 2017 at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The exhibit traveled to the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City from June through September 2018; the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, November 2018 through March 2019; the Cincinnati Art Museum, October 2019 through January 2020; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from March to May 2020.
Admission to the museum has always been free, in accordance with Archer Huntington's trust. But due to financial difficulties, the society went to court in 2016 in order to be allowed to charge an admission fee to temporary exhibitions to be held in the museum's new facility, while keeping the main hall free.
In 2020 the museum appointed Guillaume Kientz, former curator at the Louvre and the Kimbell Art Museum, as its new director.
See also
In Spanish: Sociedad Hispánica de América para niños
