Museo de Arte de Ponce

Ponce has an art museum that would be notable in a European capital, built on the collection of a local industrialist and housed since 1965 in a building by Edward Durell Stone, whose hexagonal skylit galleries were designed to light paintings by day without electricity. The collection runs from the Italian baroque through Spanish and Dutch old masters to nineteenth-century European painting, and its most famous piece is Frederic Leighton's Flaming June, a Pre-Raphaelite canvas bought for a modest sum in the 1960s when Victorian painting was out of fashion and now among the best-known images of the period. Puerto Rican and Latin American work fills the later rooms. The building itself, with its curving double staircase, is part of the attraction.

History

Luis A. Ferré began buying European art, including many Pre-Raphaelite works, in 1956, and opened the museum on 3 January 1959 in a house on Cristina Street with 72 works. The Kress Foundation gave 15 paintings in 1962, Edward Durell Stone's new building was begun on 23 April 1964 and opened on 28 December 1965, and a $30 million renovation was finished for the museum's 50th anniversary on 13 November 2010 (Wikipedia, Museo de Arte de Ponce).

The main sights

• Flaming June - Leighton's Pre-Raphaelite canvas, the museum's signature work.
• The old masters - Italian baroque, Spanish and Dutch painting.
• The building - Edward Durell Stone's hexagonal skylit galleries and staircase.
• Puerto Rican painting - the island's own artists in the later rooms.

When to go

Year-round; the galleries are air-conditioned, which makes this a good afternoon when the coast is at its hottest. Check opening days before travelling, as the museum has closed for periods of repair after earthquakes and storms and sometimes shows in a reduced footprint.

Things to know

The museum has had repeated closures for structural repair since the 2020 earthquakes, and parts of the collection have been shown off-site or not at all; confirm what is open before driving from San Juan. Flaming June travels to loan exhibitions abroad, so it is not always on the wall. Ponce itself is an hour and a half each way.

Nearby

Ponce's old town and its red and black firehouse are ten minutes away; the Caribbean coast is south.

Key facts