Angela on Art

Museo Soumaya

Museo Soumaya in Mexico City

Have you heard of this museum? I hadn’t, but on my 9th day in Mexico City, we walked from our apartment in the Roma to the Polanco neighborhood to check it out. My new son-in-law had it on his list because he studied the building as an architecture student. I had no idea what I was in for. Walking up to it was so impressive!

We walked around the gorgeous building and decided to go inside. There was no line AND it was free entry!

The museum was designed by architect Fernando Romero, the son-in-law of the founder, Carlos Slim. He named it after his wife, Soumaya Domit who died in 1999. It opened in 2011.

The facade is composed of 16,000 aluminum hexagons and the shape is an asymmetric twisted structure, reminiscent of a Frank Gehry. When you enter there is a huge main floor room with large pieces including two Diego Rivera murals, a few bronze sculptures by Rodin (including his Gates of Hell) and The Winged Victory of Samothrace. It took my breath away to see all of these masterpieces together. Like the Guggenheim in Manhattan, this museum is designed with a spiral ramp going up six floors. If we were not so eager to get started, we would have taken the elevator to the top and worked our way down, but we went up!

Winged Victory of Samothrace, c.190 BC Hellenistic period

Rio Juchitan, mosaic mural by Diego Rivera

There are 70,000 works of art in this museum so it’s quite a thrill. The collection includes European masters, pre-Hispanic artifacts, modern Western art, and Mexican art. It has the largest collection of Rodin sculptures outside of France.

Amor Secreto, by Antonio Rossetti

Many of the marble antiquities said “fabricated by Robot City Italian Art Factory”. I researched this place and indeed they can make exact replicas out of the same marble used on the original. They use digital scans, robotic tools and AI to reproduce them exactly. The original Winged Victory of Samothrace is at The Louvre.

I took photos of many of the works because they had incredible frames!

Paintings by Georges Rouault

Adoration of the Magi, Dutch School circa 1520

Los Campesinos, by Marc Chagall

Nude Behind a Staircase and Nude on a Pink Sofa, Henri Lebasque

Young Saint John the Baptist, Elisabetta Sirani

The center artwork is “Project for a Mural” by Paul Devaux

Seaport at Night, 1748 by Claude Joseph

Gallery display of Food Still Lifes

We were kicked out (very courteously) before we got to the top floor because they were closing. I wish we knew it was so wonderful because we would have factored in a lot more time. All three of us agreed that it was our favorite museum experience ever. It helps that we all love art and architecture.

Head of a Young Girl with a Fringe, Amadeo Modigliani

La Tierra Como el Agua y la Industrias nos Pertenecen, David Alfaro Siquieros

Mexico City has over 150 officially recognized museums, many focusing on history and anthropology, and dozens dedicated to fine art.

The National Museum of AnthropoIogy has a grand, modern architecture and is full of artifacts (600,000!) from Mesoamerican cultures, from Olmec to the Toltec, Maya to Aztec. We spent hours there and only saw a small section.

Courtyard of Museo Nacional de Antropologia | mnha.inah.gob.mx

Facade of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, replica of a section of the original pyramid at Teotihuacan (We also toured Teotihuacan and climbed the Pyramid of the Moon)

3D display of Templo Mayor of Tenochtitilan, the ancient Aztec capital. The map depicts the city before 1520s arrival of Spanish conquerors. It was an island within Lake Texcoco.

Colossal Olmec head, basalt sculpture from ancient Olmec civilization, from 1500 BCE and 400 BCE

Ok, this post is supposed to be about the Museo Soumaya, and I’m going on a tangent. In conclusion, Go to Mexico City!