The Tamesis
Santander announced on Wednesday that it will manage about half of the Gell-Mann collection – one of the most important collections of 20th-century Mexican art – after it disappeared from public view in 2008. national newspaper Report.
To be more precise, the Madrid-based bank currently oversees 160 of the approximately 300 works in the collection of influential art patrons Jacques and Natasha Gelman. After their deaths, the collection was given to their executor, Robert R. Littman, who reportedly divided the collection and distributed the works to museums around the world, despite a will stipulating that the works must remain intact on display in a private museum in Mexico. The collection has not been seen in Mexico since 2008, and its whereabouts are largely unknown, with only a few paintings seen sporadically in foreign art institutions.
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The collection will serve as the backbone of the new Santander Cultural Center in Faro, which is due to open in June, according to an announcement from the bank. The exhibition was made possible through a long-term loan agreement between Santander and the Zambranos, a prominent Mexican business family who were revealed to own the once-lost collection. The Zambrano family’s reported involvement has sparked some controversy in Mexico over whether a collection of such national artistic importance should remain in private hands.
Many of the works in the collection—including every work by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Frida Kahlo—are protected by Mexican law with the status of an artistic monument declaration, typically with a two-year export license. However, the Santander Foundation will house and exhibit the collection in Spain
“We will comply with customs obligations and our responsibilities. However, this is a flexible legal framework, INBAL [Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature] “We have an important say and we will work with them in the most flexible way,” Santander Santander director Daniel Vega Pérez said in a statement.
Vega Pérez said the temporary export license “can be extended at the discretion of INBAL (National Institute of Arts and Letters),” adding that the regular return of works to Mexico “is only a formality.”
“There have been exceptions in the past, and we have [the Mexican government]. The need for customs controls conflicts with issues such as the preservation of art,” he said. Currently, there are no plans to exhibit the collection in Mexico, although the director of the cultural center intends to do so in the future. However, Vega Pérez told the media, “The collection will always exist in Faro, but it will change and is always dynamic. “
