Tlaquepaque street

The museums of Guadalajara and Tlaquepaque

Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico. The metropolitan area includes Tlaquepaque, Tonala, and Zapopan, with a total population of about 4 million people. It is located about 200 miles east of Puerto Vallarta, and 300 miles west of Mexico City.   Guadalajara seems prosperous, orderly, and clean, compared to most Mexican cities. My wife […]

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Museo Nacional De Acuarela

Alfredo Guati Rojo. Painting With Light – Museo Nacional De Acuarela

“Without watercolors we wouldn´t know nearly what we know about the ancient Mexicans,” said the gentleman across the expanse of polished desk with a sweet smile. “All of the codexes were painted with colored pigment in water on amate paper (thick, handmade paper from the inner bark of the amate tree that only grows in the State of Morelos). […]

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Trotsky's Desk

The Leon Trotsky Museum – murder and Marxism in Mexico City

On a balmy summer evening in August 1940, a young man gained admittance to the study of Leon Trotsky’s heavily guarded house near Mexico City. He asked Trotsky to read something he had written. While Trotsky was poring over his article, the visitor removed an alpine climbing axe from his overcoat and sank it into […]

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Casa del Arte Popular Mexicano, Cancun

Cancun’s cultural oasis: La Casa del Arte Popular Mexicano

Tucked away between the towering hotels of Cancun’s sparkling shores is a cultural treasure known as La Casa del Arte Popular Mexicano. Perched atop the pier on Kukulcán Boulevard in Cancun’s hotel zone, the tiny museum is brimming with handcrafted pieces that reflect Mexico’s rich artistic legacy. Careful thought went into the creation of La […]

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Raul Ybarra: Embryography of a Mexican jeweler

Churubusco, Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones

If you would like a glimpse of several slices of Mexican history in all their messy complexity, with its heroes and villains, both local and foreign, the National Interventions Museum should be on your list of places to visit. Located in the Ex-Convento Churubusco of Mexico City, the museum [Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones] offers exhibits […]

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Ancient pottery on tasteful display. © Anthony Wright, 2009

Anahuacalli: Diego Rivera’s gift of indigenous treasures

Legendary Mexican artist and master muralist Diego Rivera spent so much time avidly collecting pre-Hispanic art it’s a wonder he ever got around to painting. Rivera amassed a collection of thousands of objects: pottery items, stone and jade figures of animals, gods and humans. Many of the purchases were made on the black market. On […]

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Místico, La Sombra, and Volador Jr., photograph by Diego Gallegos © Anthony Wright, 2013

Mexico’s lucha libre: Street art in a Coyoacan museum

A new exhibit running through January at the Museo de las Culturas Populares in Coyoacan, Mexico City, celebrates the “wow” factor of the wrestling phenomenon known the world over as lucha libre (free fighting) — that is as famous a Mexican cultural export nowadays as Frida Kahlo, Day of the Dead, and tequila. It’s also big in […]

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