CULTURE AND SOCIETY

The Hispanic Society Museum & Library

The institution was founded in 1904 by Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955), an American philanthropist and stepson of railway magnate Collis P. Huntington, with the aim of creating a public library for the study of art and culture in Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the Philippines.
Its collection is one of the best outside Spain and presents almost every aspect of Spanish culture, but also that of Portugal and Latin America in the 20th century. There are over 900 paintings and 6,000 watercolors and drawings including masterpieces by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, El Greco, Francisco de Zurbarán and Joaquín Sorolla. There is also a collection of sculptures that includes a historical period ranging from the first millennium BC to the beginning of the twentieth century and over 6,000 objects of decorative arts of ceramics, glass, wrought iron as well as furniture, textiles and jewelry. Among the works on paper there are 15,000 prints of graphic arts in Spain from the 17th to the 20th century, more than 175,000 photographs from 1850 until the beginning of the 20th century documenting the art, culture and customs of Spain and Latin America.
Finally, the Library contains over 300,000 books and periodicals, including 15,000 volumes printed before 1701, including a first edition of the Don Quixote de la Mancha in Cervantes, as well as 250,000 manuscripts, letters and documents from the 11th century to the present day.
Since 1908, the museum has been housed in a Beaux-Arts building in the Audubon Terrace Historic District designed by architect Charles Pratt Huntington, cousin of Archer Milton Huntington.

References

Kenneth T. Jackson, Lisa Keller, Nancy Flood. The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition. Yale University Press, 2010. pp. 598-599
Francis Morrone. The Architectural Guidebook to New York City . Gibbs Smith, 2002. p. 346
About us (Hispanic Society Museum & Library)
Hispanic Society of America (Wikipedia)