Appropriations and Invention

Drawing from the renowned collection of Latin American Art at the Denver Art Museum, this catalogue examines the processes of appropriation and invention in the arts of Spanish America from the 1520s to the 1820s.

The catalogue highlights Latin American masterpieces, including paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts, made shortly after the conquest and before the independence movements. Arranged regionally, the essays explore how artists found freedom despite colonial authority. While pleasing clients, many artists of Indigenous and African descent also reclaimed and reshaped the arts for themselves and their new colonial realities. Epilogue essays will consider modern and contemporary trends.