New England / New Spain: Portraiture in the Colonial Americas, 1492-1850
By Donna Pierce
Denver Art Museum, July 2016

In 2014 the Denver Art Museum held a symposium hosted by the Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial Art and co-organized by Donna Pierce, former Frederick and Jan Mayer of Spanish Colonial Art, and Emily Ballew Neff, Director of the Brooks Museum, Memphis. They assembled an international group of scholars to present recent research on portraiture in the Spanish colony of New Spain (Mexico) and the British colonies of North America. This volume presents revised and expanded versions of papers presented at the symposium.

Michael Schreffler (University of Notre Dame) opens the volume with a discussion of portraits of Cortés and Moctezuma in sixteenth-century New Spain. Clare Kunny (Art Muse, Los Angeles) examines portraits of Antonio de Mendoza (1490–1552), the first viceroy of Mexico. Susan Rather (University of Texas, Austin) analyzes portraiture in colonial British America and landscapes included in them. Karl Kusserow (Princeton University Art Museum) explores selfhood and surroundings in British American portraits.

Paula Mues Orts (National School of Conservation, Mexico) examines the portrait series commissioned and displayed in colonial Mexico by religious and civic organizations as a claim to power and prestige. James Middleton (independent scholar, New York) discusses clothing and accessories in New Spanish portraiture that allow a more precise dating of works. Jennifer Van Horn (George Mason University) follows the trans-Atlantic travels of portraitist Joseph Blackburn from England to New England and Bermuda. Kaylin Weber (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) explores the career of American Benjamin West and his trans-Atlantic move from Boston to London.

Elizabeth Kornhauser (Metropolitan Museum of Art) addresses the portraits of New England painter Ralph Earl, who struggled to fashion a new style for the young American republic. Michael Brown (San Diego Museum of Art) closes the volume by comparing the fate of portraits from New England and New Spain in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (July 2016) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop.

Companion to Glitterati: Portraits and Jewelry from Colonial Latin America at the Denver Art Museum
By Donna Pierce and Julie Wilson Frick
Denver Art Museum, December 2015

During the Spanish Colonial period in Latin America (1521–1850), precious gold and silver were crafted into elegant jewelry, then embellished with emeralds from Colombia, coral from Mexico, and pearls from Venezuela. To demonstrate their wealth and status, people were painted wearing their finest dress and elaborate jewelry. Selecting from its permanent collection, the Denver Art Museum installed the long-running exhibition Glitterati: Portraits and Jewelry in Colonial Latin America in its Spanish Colonial galleries (December 2014-November 2016). This lavishly illustrated publication serves as a companion to the Glitterati exhibition and, on a larger scale, to the collection of Spanish Colonial jewelry and portraiture at the museum.

The Spanish Colonial collection at the Denver Art Museum is the most comprehensive of its kind in the United States and one of the best in the world with outstanding examples of painting, sculpture, furniture, decorative arts, silver and goldwork, and jewelry from all over Latin America during the time of the Spanish colonies. The Stapleton Foundation of Latin American Colonial Art, made possible by the Renchard family, gifted art acquired by the intrepid Daniel C. Stapleton between 1895 and 1914, when he worked in Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela overseeing plantations and emerald mines. Frederick and Jan Mayer worked closely with museum curators to build a collection of Mexican colonial art rich in many subjects and media, notably portrait paintings. Examples from both of these major collections are augmented by other pieces of jewelry and portraiture from the museum’s permanent collection in the Glitterati exhibition and in this volume.

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (December 2015) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

Festivals & Daily Life in the Arts of Colonial Latin America, 1492-1850
Papers from the 2012 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum
Edited by Donna Pierce
Denver Art Museum, September 2014

With essays by
Beatriz Berndt (Independent Scholar, Mexico City, Mexico), Gustavo Curiel (Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico), Kelly Donahue-Wallace (University of North Texas, Denton, TX), Alexandra Kennedy-Troya (Universidad de Cuenca, Cuenca Ecuador), Susan Migden Socolow (Emory University, Atlanta, GA), Barbara E. Mundy (Fordham University, New York, NY), Frances L. Ramos (University of South Florida, Tampa, FL), Jorge F. Rivas Perez (Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela).

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (September 2014) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

Pre-Columbian Art & Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Frederick R. Mayer
Papers from the 2002 & 2007 Mayer Center Symposia at the Denver Art Museum
Edited by Margaret Young-Sánchez
Denver Art Museum, March 2013

With essays by
Michael Coe (Yale University), Frederick Lange (LSA Associates) and Ron Bishop (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History), Michael Snarskis (Tayutic Foundation, Costa Rica), Warwick Bray (University College, London), (Denver Art Museum), Margaret Young-Sánchez (Denver Art Museum), Carol Mackey (California State University, Northridge) and Joanne Pillsbury (Getty Research Institute).

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (March 2012) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

At the Crossroads: The Arts of Spanish America & Early Global Trade, 1492-1850
Papers from the 2010 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum
Edited by Donna Pierce
Denver Art Museum, December 2012

With essays by
Claire Farago & James Cordova (University of Colorado, Boulder), Dana Leibsohn (Smith College), Jaime Mariazza F. (Universidad de San Marcos, Lima, Peru), Maria Bonta de la Pezuela (Sotheby's, New York), Donna Pierce (Denver Art Museum), Sara Ryu (Yale University), William Sargent (Peabody Essex Museum), Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt (Independent Scholar).

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (December 2012) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

Companion to Spanish Colonial Art at the Denver Art Museum
By Donna Pierce
Denver Art Museum, December 2011

A lavishly illustrated primer to the Denver Art Museum's Spanish Colonial Art collection.

The Denver Art Museum counts among its greatest resources a world-renowned Spanish Colonial collection rich in art from all over Latin America. Initiated in 1936, the Spanish Colonial collection has grown dramatically over the years to include more than 3,000 objects. It is the best collection of its type in the United States, and in many areas, it is the most comprehensive collection outside the country of origin. The museum's Spanish Colonial galleries include significant paintings, sculpture, furniture, silver, and decorative arts from the period.

This lavishly illustrated volume--the first ever devoted to the museum's Spanish Colonial collection as a whole--serves as a primer to this stellar art collection, framing it within the historical context of the early modern world and the first era of global trade. Organized by theme rather than chronology, it features photographs of more than 100 objects from all areas of Spanish America and the southwestern United States. Subjects discussed include, but are not limited to, the continuity of native traditions, church and mission art, hybrid art forms, and the art of everyday life.

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (Late Fall 2011) for $19.95 and at the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

Marajó: Ancient Ceramics from the Mouth of the Amazon
By Margaret Young-Sánchez & Denise P. Schaan
Denver Art Museum, June 2011

A companion catalog to an exhibition of the same name on view at the DAM 6/11 - 9/18/2011.

Long virtually unknown to the North American and European audiences, the Amazon Basin is now recognized as a cradle of cultural and technological innovation in the ancient Americas.  The hemisphere’s earliest known ceramics (about 5000 B.C.) were produced there, and archaeology is revealing the remains of large settlements, ancient mound structures, and extensive water management systems, all built over the course of centuries.  Marajó Island, located at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil, was home to one of the region’s most populous and sophisticated ancient societies (A.D. 300-1300).  Beautifully decorated ceramics deposited as offerings in ancient Marajó cemeteries attest to the technical skill and artistry of Amazonian potters, and the complexity and sophistication of their cosmology.  Lavishly illustrated in this volume is the full range of forms, drawn from the collections of the Denver Art Museum, the Barbier-Mueller Museums of Geneva and Barcelona, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the American Museum of Natural History, and private collections.  

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (Summer 2011) and at the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488). $25

Nature and Spirit: Ancient Costa Rican Treasures in the Mayer Collection at the Denver Art Museum
Papers from the 2008 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum
Edited by Margaret Young-Sánchez
Denver Art Museum, January 2011

Generously illustrated and engagingly organized, Nature and Spirit is both an excellent introduction to Costa Rican art and an essential addition to any collection on native peoples of the Americas. Essays by art historians Margaret Young-Sánchez (Denver Art Museum) and Heather Orr (Western State College, Colorado), archaeologists Michael Snarskis (Costa Rica) and John Hoopes (University of Kansas), and anthropologist and linguist David Mora Marín (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) illuminate ancient Costa Rican artistic styles, as well as cultural and religious beliefs, and place the works in archaeological context.

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (January 2011) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

The Arts of South America, 1492-1850
Papers from the 2008 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum
Edited by Donna Pierce
Denver Art Museum, November 2010

With essays by
Luisa Elena Alcala (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain), Michael Brown (Denver Art Museum), Thomas B.F. Cummins (Harvard University), Sabine MacCormack (University of Notre Dame), Jorge Rivas Perez (Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela), Nuno Senos (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal), Susan Verdi Webster (College of William & Mary).

Distributed by the University of Oklahoma Press (November 2010) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

Andean Textile Traditions: Papers from the 2001 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum
Edited by Margaret Young-Sánchez and Fronia W. Simpson
Denver Art Museum, 2006

With essays by Ran Boytner (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA), Andrea M. Heckman (University of New Mexico), Marianne Hogue (Virginia Commonwealth University), Joanne Pillsbury (Dumbarton Oaks), Jane Rehl (Savannah College of Art and Design) and Margaret Young-Sánchez (Denver Art Museum).

Distributed by the University of Texas Press (Spring 2006) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

Exploring New World Imagery: Spanish Colonial Papers from the 2002 Mayer Center Symposium
Edited by Donna Pierce
Denver Art Museum, 2005

With essays by Carolyn Dean (UC, Santa Barbara), Samuel Y. Edgerton (Williams College), Juana Gutierrez Haces (Universidad National Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City), Alexandra Kennedy-Troya (Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador), and Jeanette Favrot Peterson (UC, Santa Barbara).

Distributed by University of Texas Press (Fall 2005) and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).

Tiwanaku: Ancestors of the Inca
Edited and with an introduction Margaret Young-Sánchez
Denver Art Museum, 2004

A companion publication to an exhibition of the same name at the Denver Art Museum, October 2004 - January 2005.

With essays by Sergio J. Chavez (Central Michigan University), Nicole C. Couture (McGill University, Montreal), Paul S. Goldstein (UC, San Diego), and Alan L. Kolata (University of Chicago), Mario A. Rivera (University of Chicago and Universidad Bolivariana, Chile).

Distributed by the amazon.com and the Denver Art Museum Gift Shop (720.865.4488).