Hispanic Society of America. The Hispanic Society of America is a museum and reference library for the study of the arts and cultures of Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America, the Philippines and Portuguese India.
Founded in 1904 by Archer M. Huntington, the institution remains at its original location in a 1908 Beaux Arts building on Audubon Terrace in the lower Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City in the United States. A second building, on the north side of the terrace, was added in 1930.
Exterior sculpture in front of that building includes work by Anna Hyatt Huntington and nine major reliefs by the Swiss-American sculptor Berthold Nebel, a commission that took ten years to complete. The Hispanic Society complex was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2012.
In 2017, the museum began a major renovation and is closed to the public until the work is completed. Much of the collection is on loan to other institutions during this period.
The museum contains more than 18,000 works in every medium, ranging from prehistoric times to the 20th century. There are important paintings by Diego Velazquez, Francisco de Goya, El Greco, and Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, among others, as well as sculpture and architectural elements, furniture and metalwork, ceramics and textiles. A major component of this museum is the Sorolla Room which was reinstalled in 2010. It displays The Pro