From universalist to national art: The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires

Abstract

The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) was the first art museum of Argentina. It was founded in 1895 and opened its doors the following year, a late date in comparison to other Latin American cases. In Argentina, private collecting preceded the creation of public collections and played a key role in the growth of the museum’s holdings. Particular donations formed a great part of its patrimony, and not only at its foundation. Private collections distinctly marked the institution throughout the twentieth century. This chapter reconstructs the history of the first decades of the MNBA, from its foundation until its move to a permanent site in the 1930s. The focus is on museum projects that—in a more or less explicit manner—sought to justify the expansion of the museum’s collection. It centers on the aesthetic selections of the MNBA’s first directors, principally on the efforts of Eduardo Shiaffino and Cupertino del Campo, and on the ways in which the works entered the collection—through donations of private collectors, by way of acquisition or, from 1911, through prizes in the Salons of Argentine artists. The main hypothesis holds that the museum fluctuated—or had to adapt its profile—between a universalist approach (which sought to be representative of Western art) and one more focused on art produced in the country.