Museo La Tertulia

The museum grew from a tertulia - a regular discussion group - started by Maritza Uribe de Urdinola and other women in Cali in 1956 to talk about art, which acquired works, then premises, and became the city's modern art museum, moving to the present riverside building in 1968. Its particular strength is graphic art: it ran the American Biennial of Graphic Arts from 1971, which brought printmaking from across the continent to Cali and built a substantial collection of Latin American prints that is still the museum's core. It also holds Colombian modern painting and sculpture and runs contemporary exhibitions. A cinematheque on the site shows art and repertory film. The building sits on the river with sculpture in the grounds.

History

A tertulia is a gathering to talk about art or literature, and the museum grew from one: in the mid-1950s, when Cali had few cultural spaces, Clara Inés Suárez and Maritza Uribe de Urdinola, who already ran a cultural centre in her home, brought artists and friends together into a cultural group. La Tertulia was founded on 9 March 1956 in a house in the San Antonio quarter rented by the journalist Alfonso Bonilla Aragón, where for twelve years a private school used the rooms in the mornings and the afternoons were given to works by local and foreign artists, slowly building the collection. In 1968 the Foundational Building went up on the bank of the Cali River, at the spot called El Charco del Burro (Wikipedia, La Tertulia Museum).

Highlights

• A Latin American graphic art collection - built through the biennial from 1971.
• A museum founded by a women's discussion group - in 1956.
• Colombian modern painting and sculpture - alongside the prints.
• A cinematheque - showing art and repertory film.

When to go

Year round; closed Mondays. Two hours.

What to expect

The permanent collection rotates and much is in store. It closes Mondays. Labelling is largely in Spanish. It is modest in size compared with the Bogota and Medellin museums.

Nearby

San Antonio is uphill; the Cali river runs past.

Key facts