Painted Cloth: Fashion and Ritual in Colonial Latin America

Painted Cloth explores the production, meaning, and representation of garments used in civil and religious settings across Latin America during the 1700s. Both the exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art and this accompanying catalogue, reflect on the ways in which clothing played an essential role in articulating socioeconomic, gender, and racial identity among various Indigenous groups, African slaves, Spanish colonizers, and their mixed-raced descendants. The project spotlights aesthetic components of the artistic production of the Spanish Americas while also encouraging wider conversations about the impact of the colonial period in shaping the social fabric of the region.

In addition to a foreword by Blanton director Simone Wicha, and an introduction and essay by Rosario I. Granados, Painted Cloth features essays by Julia McHugh, Trent A. Carmichael Curator of Academic Initiatives at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; Ana Paulina Gamez, independent scholar and curator in Mexico City; Ricardo Kusonoki, Curator of Colonial and Republican Art, Museo de Arte de Lima; Patricia Diiaz Cayeros, fulltime researcher, Instituto de Investigaciones Esteiticas, Universidad Nacional Autoinoma de Meixico; and Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, associate professor of art history, University of Florida Gainesville.