While the Morrows assembled their collection, Dwight Morrow served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1927 to 1930. The Morrows, despite tense relations between the U.S. and Mexico, had a residence in the Cuernavaca, Mexico, which they called Casa Mañana, and they patronized Mexican popular arts that, in post-revolutionary Mexico, symbolized national identity. The art that they collected decorated their weekend home.
"Morrow used art as a diplomatic tool to help improve the reputation of Mexico in the United States and to improve the reputation of Americans in Mexico," explained Professor of Art History James Oles of Wellesley College, curator of the Casa Mañana collection. "The image of Mexico that the Morrows promoted was an image of a very tranquil and quaint and non-threatening Mexico. The type of art that the Morrows were interested in was art made in rural areas, made by people of the lower class, or old things that had been made for the upper class, but art associated with the people-not with the modern country, but with the sort of old country."
Although the Morrows brought the image of a traditional Mexico back to the United States, Mexico was more modernized in the early 20th century than Americans were led to believe and, in fact, much of the art that the Morrows collected was made in the popular folk style that tourists admired for its appreciation of the past and is found in such contexts as the market place.
Oles worked with the Mead's Art Preparator, Tim Gilfillan, to display major pieces of the collection in these contexts in the actual exhibition. "All art-all things-live in different contexts," said Oles. "We experience art in different ways and its meanings are different ... I didn't really want to do a show that was only about these objects as beautiful things (although many of them are), but I was more interested in the stories that they could tell that are relevant. These things have a history."
In the late 1920s, when the Morrows accumulated most of their collection, the family collected both contemporary pieces, including commonly found pieces in the marketplace, and rare, late 18th century antiques. Of the 159 pieces donated to Amherst by the Morrows, over 70 are on display at the Mead. The museum collaborated with Smith College to incorporate vintage photographs by Edward Weston, Hugo Brehme, Manuel and Lola Alvarez Bravo, and other photographers into the exhibition to further explain the culture of the era. These photographs complete the picture of daily life in early twentieth century Mexico.
Susan Danly, former curator of American art at the Mead, decided to exhibit the Morrow Collection since it had not been displayed since the 1930s. Danly completed much of the research for the exhibition and oversaw the production of the catalogue. Oles was originally an advisor on the project and an essayist in the catalogue, but eventually became Head Curator of the show. He communicated frequently, via email and Federal Express from Wellesley, with Head Curator Jill Meredith and Art Preparator Tim Gilfillan to install the pieces of the Morrow Collection. Danly, Oles and Meredith spent just over three years planning the exhibition.
"Amherst College has one of the most important collections of Mexican folk art in the United States-not the biggest, but probably historically one of the most important," said Oles. "Now it's been preserved and it's been recorded and now, hopefully, this show will travel, because that's the next phase of this project."
Related events include a Mexican-American Film Festival and a lecture by Anthony W. Lee, Professor of Art at Mount Holyoke College, entitled "North of the Border: The U.S. in the Mexican Artistic Imagination" on March 14 at 7:00 pm in Stirn Auditorium.
Casa Mañana is on display in the Mead Art Museum from now until Sun. April 21.