An Art Museum in Puerto Rico, 1898-1902. Oller’s Endeavor in Times of Political Storm

Abstract

In the history of Puerto Rican art Francisco Oller is the most important painter and the one with greater international recognition as well. In this paper a less well-known aspect of his life is brought into focus: his endeavor to establish an art museum in Puerto Rico. Even though his repeated proposals from 1898 to 1902 were mostly received with indifference and even, at times, with contempt by the highest official authorities, they planted the seed of a cultural project that would develop only around the middle of the twentieth century.