by Mariá Luisa Ferré Rangel, Deborah L. Roldán, and Luis A. Ferré
The official hardback catalogue for the exhibition and collection, The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from the Museo de Arte de Ponce.
The Sense of Beauty will showcase masterworks by prominent European and North American artists, including religious paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, and Anthony van Dyck; portraits by Joshua Reynolds, Élisabeth Louise Vigée LeBrun, and Francisco de Goya; landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church, William Merritt Chase, and Gustave Courbet; and genre scenes by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, James Tissot, and John Singer Sargent. The Museo de Arte de Ponce is also renowned for having one of the most significant collections of Victorian art outside of the United Kingdom. Their iconic painting Flaming June by Frederic Leighton will be featured along with works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. Additionally, the exhibition will highlight the rich heritage of Puerto Rican art, from José Campeche’s religious images of the late eighteenth century to the work of contemporary artists such as Francisco Rodón, Myrna Báez, and Waldemar Morales Lugo.
In the early 1950s, Luis A. Ferré and his first wife, Lorencita Ramírez de Arellano, conceived the project of founding an art museum for the enjoyment of Puerto Ricans. Shortly thereafter, Ferré began acquiring works of art for the institution he would establish in Ponce. In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the museum’s founding in 1959 and the 60th anniversary of the opening of the building that houses our main galleries, we are pleased to present 𝐸𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑑𝑜 𝑑𝑒 𝑙𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜: 𝑆𝑒𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑠 𝑑𝑒 𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎 𝑑𝑒𝑙 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑜 𝑑𝑒 𝐴𝑟𝑡𝑒 𝑑𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒, a traveling exhibition that seeks to highlight the three most representative areas of the Museum’s collection with a selection of sixty paintings by European, Puerto Rican, and American artists. Discover all of this and more, along with accompanying breathtaking images of the collection within the pages of this hardback.
On view starting June 20, 2026 through September 20, 2026. The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce has been organized by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in collaboration with the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
- Publisher: Museo de Arte de Ponce, 2025.
- Hardback: 199 pages
- Language: English and Spanish translations.
- ISBN: 978-0-09905151-3-5