Galleons and Globalization: California Mission Arts and the Pacific Rim
August 20 – December 17, 2010
In conjunction with Legacies of the Book: Early Missionary Printing in Asia & the Americas in the Donohue Rare Book Room.
The University of San Francisco commemorates the 400th anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci, Jesuit pioneer of inculturation, with two exhibitions that bring together missionary and secular art, artifacts, and books from the Spanish Pacific empire. The exhibition explores the lively commerce in iconography, materials, and ideas that shaped California’s rich mission arts.
Galleons & Globalization explores the lively commerce in iconography, materials, and ideas that shaped California’s rich mission arts, presenting over 125 objects dating from the 16th and 19th centuries that exemplify the rich cultural interchange among missions in the Philippines, Macau, China, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Baja and Alta California.
The Acapulco-Manila Galleons plied the Pacific trade routes from 1565 to 1815, exchanging American silver for Asian porcelains, silks, spices, and luxury goods, providing a steady trans-Pacific trade in books, artworks, liturgical and practical objects, as well as food stuffs. The exhibition opens with artifacts from four of these sunken ships: the wreck of Galleon San Diego outside Manila Harbor (1600) and three North American sites (the doomed San Agustin that broke up at Point Reyes in 1595, the mysterious Oregon “Wax Ship,” and the Baja California San Felipe site that is still being excavated.)
The beauty, diversity, and richness of the artifacts is unexpected, even startling. Seen together these objects—obscure treasures collected from sunken ships and prized selections from international museums, California’s missions, and private collections—lead to surprising cross-cultural discoveries: Jesuit images from India and porcelain from Macau; Christian pottery from China and Japan; a Chinese Guadalupe from Carmel; a Risen Christ from the Paraguayan reductions recently discovered at Santa Barbara; a Chumash basket woven with the Spanish imperial coat of arms at Ventura; vestments and mantones de manila (Chinese silk shawls); Philippine ivories; a mission bell cast in Lima; ships’ carvings from Santa Barbara and San Antonio; and a Russian samovar from San Gabriel. All of these demonstrate the beginnings of globalization that occurred in the Spanish Pacific from the late 16th through early 19th centuries and contributed to the beauty and richness of California Mission arts.
The exhibit is complemented by an extensive display of very early imprints from Japan, China, the Philippines, Mexico, and Peru in the USF Donohue Rare Book Room and a scholarly conference Legacies of the Book: Early Missionary Printing in Asia and the Americas (September 24-26, 2010).
Major Sponsors
Ambassador Alfonso T. Yuchengco, Asian Art Museum, Thomas and Patricia Klitgaard, Andrea and David Hayes, and the University of San Francisco’s Center for the Pacific Rim, Jesuit Foundation, Loyola House Jesuit Community, Ricci Institute, Saint Ignatius Institute, and Yuchengco Program in Philippine Studies.
Lending Institutions and Individuals
Araneta Family; Austrian National Library; California State Library, Sutro Branch; California States Parks Service, Sonoma; Campion Hall, Oxford University; Cynthia Bondoc; de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University; Eugene Florendo; Andrew Galvan; Leovino Garcia; The Getty Research Institute; Jeremy Hass; INAM, Baja California; La Purisima State Park; Jesuit Community, Macau; Lauinger Library, Georgetown University; Gordon Miller; Mission Dolores, San Francisco; Mission San António, Jolon; Mission San Carlos, Carmel; Mission Santa Clara; Mission San Diego; Mission San Fernando Rey, San Fernando; Mission San Francisco Solano, Sonoma; Mission San Gabriel; Mission San Juan Bautista; Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside; Mission Santa Barbara; Mission Santa Inés, Solvang; Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley; Presidio Chapel, San Carlos Cathedral, Monterey; National Parks Service, Point Reyes; National Museum of the Philippines, Manila; Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, Santa Barbara; San Agustín Museum, Philippines; Santa Casa de Misericordia, Macau; San Carlos Cathedral, Monterey; Society of California Pioneers; Sophia University, Japan; Tillamook County Pioneer Museum; USF Donohue Rare Book Room; USF Jesuit Community; USF Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History; USF Collection; Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, The University of Texas at Austin; Saryl and Edward Von der Porten; Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University.
Curators
The exhibit is curated by Thomas Lucas S.J., PhD, USF’s first University Professor of Art and Architecture and director of the Thacher Gallery, with important contributions from Antoni Ucerler S.J., (Oxford University), Edward Von der Porten, and the curators of Alta California’s missions.
Events
Opening Celebration
Thursday, September 2, 3-5 p.m.
Thacher Gallery at USF
Scholarly Conference
Friday to Sunday, September 24-26, 2010
Fromm Hall at USF
Related Off-Site Presentations
Dr. Corazon Alvina, former director of the National Museum of the Philippines, and Rene Javellana, SJ, Professor of Art, Ateneo de Manila University
Thursday, September 30, 6 pm ($5)
Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin Street.