For those interested in the folk arts of Mexico, up for auction is a copy of Con Cariño: Mexican Folk Art, a 1986 exhibition catalogue featuring over 300 works of art shown at the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA), which published the softcover title (and the smaller publication tucked within it that includes the Spanish-language text only of the larger book). The book's author is Marion Oettinger, Jr., Ph.D. (born 1942), one-time Curator of Folk Art and Latin American Art at the museum and, since 1918, its Curator Emeritus of Latin American Art (he was also the museum's director from 2005-2011). The majority of the works making up the show are from the world-renowned SAMA collections that were gifts of Nelson A. Rockefeller and Robert K. Winn. 


The triple-stapled main catalogue measures 8-1/2 inches wide by 11 inches high and comprises 70 pages, while the smaller, double-stapled Spanish-language publication is 7-1/2 inches wide by 10-3/4 inches high and comprises 40 pages. In the main catalogue there are, by my count, 26 color images, with 19 of them color and 7 black-and-white.


The decorated title page, which includes an inked inscription from the curator dated 1986, reads:

 

CON CARIÑO

MEXICAN FOLK ART

from

the Collection

of the San Antonio Museum Association

By

Marion Oettinger, Jr. PhD

Curator of Folk Art


CON CARIÑO is made possible by a

generous grant from H.E.B. Foods/Drugs

and additional gifts from Mr. and Mrs. David T. Dillon,

Mr. Joe Nicholson, and Mr. and Mrs. Marshall T. Steves, Sr.


On the inside front cover, which is quite sunned and browned (likely a newspaper clipping had been placed there for some time), there's information on the lovely cover itself, which reads: "The catalogue cover is based on designs from the papel amatl (bark paper) of San Pablito, Pueblo and the papel picado (paper cut-outs) of San Salvador Huixcolotla, Puebla." The same design adorns the wraparound cover of the Spanish-language booklet tucked into the back of the main (English-language) catalogue.


The Table of Contents, opposite a lovely color image of a 19th-century painted and lacquered tray from the State of Michoacan, reads (leaving out the page numbers):



The Exhibition Checklist is divided into these categories (with the number of objects in each listed in parentheses, the grand total being over 300)


Here’s most of the article on the San Antonio Museum of Art, a wonderful institution I visited some years ago and was most impressed by:

The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) is an art museum in Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. The museum spans 5,000 years of global culture. The museum is housed in the historic former Lone Star Brewery (1886) on the Museum Reach of the San Antonio River Walk. Following a $7.2 million renovation, it opened to the public in March 1981.

HISTORY. In 1926, the San Antonio Museum Association founded the Witte Memorial Museum with the intentions of collecting various works of art and natural history objects. By the 1970s, the Witte Memorial Museum acquired notable works of art by artists such as Frank Stella, Wayne Thiebaud, and Philip Guston. Due to the growing pace of art acquisitions, Jack McGregor (former director of the San Antonio Museum Association) recommended the board purchase the former Lone Star Brewery complex and split away from the Witte Memorial Museum. SAMA officially opened its doors to the public on March 1, 1981.

In 1985, it received collections of Latin American Folk Art formed by former vice president Nelson A. Rockefeller and Robert K. Winn.

The museum is situated on the northern section of the Riverwalk. With the opening of the Gloria Galt River Landing in 2009, it now anchors the "Museum Reach" expansion of the celebrated Riverwalk.

COLLECTIONS. The museum's collection of more than 30,000 objects representing 5,000 years of history and culture from every region of the world includes important works from Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, Asian art, Latin American art, and Contemporary art.

Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World. The museum houses one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of ancient Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman art in the southern United States. The Egyptian collection holds objects from the Pre-dynastic through the late Roman and Byzantine periods. It also houses an important and rare collection of Greek and Roman sculpture that encompasses portraits, funerary sculpture, and mythological subjects.

Asian Art. The Asian art collection is housed in the Lenora and Walter F. Brown Asian Art Wing, a 15,000-square-foot suite of galleries that opened in 2005. Over the past 70 years, the museum's Asian art collections have grown to become one of the most impressive in the United States, including more than 1,500 works from China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam.

Latin American Art. The museum has one of the most comprehensive collections of Latin American art in the United States. The collection is housed in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art, which opened to the public in 1998. The center offers an overview of artwork from Mexico, Central and South America, and many countries of the Caribbean, and one of the world's most important repositories of Latin American folk art with a collection numbering over 7,000 objects.

Contemporary. A significant portion of the museum's Contemporary collection is devoted to post-World War II American painting and sculpture, including an emphasis on modernist abstraction. In addition, it has always been committed to the collection of Contemporary Texas Art, and it features paintings and sculpture produced by Texas artists from the late 1960s to the present day. The collection includes two sculptures by San Antonio-born Bonnie MacLeary.

FORMER STREETCAR SERVICE. From 1982 through 1985, the museum also operated a heritage streetcar service, using an original San Antonio streetcar built in 1913 and nicknamed "Old 300." The all-yellow car operated on a short section of Texas Transportation Company (TXTC) tracks behind it. TXTC was an electric railroad, operating trains powered from overhead trolley wires, and its tracks still reached the former Lone Star Brewery complex, in which it was installed in 1981. Streetcar service in San Antonio ended in 1933, but car 300 was preserved at that time by the San Antonio Museums Association. In 1981, volunteers restored car 300 to operating condition as a historical attraction.

Public operation began in October 1982. The car ran twice a day Tuesday through Friday and six times a day on weekends, but budget cuts led to the service's being discontinued at the end of 1985. The 1913 streetcar was placed in storage, being operated (without passengers) a few times a year to keep it in running condition, until 1990, when it was leased to a company in Portland, Oregon, for use on the Willamette Shore Trolley line there.

The museum continued to be car 300's owner, leasing it to entities in Oregon, but in 2005 it sold the car to the Astoria Riverfront Trolley Association, which had been operating it on a popular heritage streetcar line in Astoria, Oregon, since 1999.

 

The overall condition of this triple-stapled softcover catalogue, which includes a smaller double-stapled book with Spanish-language text, is very good. There's minor bumping, spotting, age-toning / sunning on the wrapper of the main publication, with the Spanish publication in excellent condition. There's some discoloration / browning (likely from old newspaper clippings laid in at some time) on the inside front cover, but the off-white / cream-colored pages inside of both publications are in very good condition. There's an author's inscription (with a date of 1986) inked on the title page, but there are no other annotations, marginalia, underlining, scribbles, etc., within, nor any major damage or flaws in either book in the way of clipped or missing pages, large tears, water or other liquid damage, tape repairs, etc. The silver-tone metal staples have rusted a bit, causing some browning on adjacent pages in both catalogs. There's neither a musty nor smoky odor to the English and Spanish publications. Note that there are some Mexican-art-related items laid in that presumably belonged to the Massachusetts couple to whom the author has inscribed a message on the book's title page. (One of the enclosures is an invitation to dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Steves, two of SAMA's most generous patrons, with "Dark suit/cocktail dress / Mexican folk attire" the recommended dress.)

 

This well-preserved copy of Con Cariño: Mexican Folk Art, published by the San Antonio Museum of Art and including a larger English-language and smaller Spanish-language publication, is being sold AS IS, AS DESCRIBED ABOVE AND PICTURED WITHIN. I am setting what I feel is a reasonable starting price for the auction, and there is NO RESERVE. I am also including a Buy It Now price.

 

Shipping and handling for the Con Cariño: Mexican Folk Art: $5 to U.S. addresses (via Media Mail).

 

Note that eBay is now instituting a shipping program whereby bidders from outside the U.S. can bid on all sellers' items, and the seller sends everything to an eBay facility in the US for shipping. 

 

If you want this publication sent more quickly to you (e.g., via Priority Mail in the U.S.), you must request this asap after winning or purchasing it (or beforehand, if possible), and I will adjust the amount accordingly.

 

I will do my best to send the book out to you no more than 2-3 business days following receipt of payment (that is, when eBay informs me that your payment has been posted to or otherwise cleared in my account). 

 

If you are the winner or buyer of this book, PAYMENT IS EXPECTED WITHIN ONE WEEK (7 DAYS) FROM THE PURCHASE DATE. If you cannot pay within this time frame, PLEASE contact me asap so we can work something out. I'm very flexible and understanding, but I would appreciate communication from you one way or another.

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT RETURNS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED NOR REFUNDS MADE FOR THIS BOOK, SO PLEASE READ MY DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY, LOOK CLOSELY AT THE PHOTOGRAPHS I’VE UPLOADED, AND ASK ME ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE ABOUT THE CONTENTS OR CONDITION OF THE TITLE. THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING!

 

Thanks for looking, and please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions about this copy of Con Cariño: Mexican Folk Art, an exhibition catalogue published by the San Antonio Museum of Art in 1986.  

 

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT I WILL HAPPILY ADJUST SHIPPING CHARGES FOR MULTIPLE PURCHASES!!! THIS DOES NOT, HOWEVER, APPLY TO PURCHASES MADE BY THOSE OUTSIDE THE U.S. USING eBAY'S GLOBAL SHIPPING PROGRAM.

ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT, IF APPLICABLE, eBAY WILL ADD ANY APPROPRIATE STATE SALES TAX TO THE INVOICE.