Kim N. Richter

Bio

Kim is a senior research specialist at the Getty Research Institute, a scholar of Pre-Columbian art history, and co-curator of the exhibition Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas. My specialty is Huastec art produced by a pre-Hispanic culture located on the northern Gulf Coast of Mexico. I am currently the co-head of the Florentine Codex initiative, focused on a beautifully painted, 16th-century encyclopedia from Mexico written in Spanish and Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs).

Getty Research Institute

Stories

  1. Competing Narratives on the Conquest of Mexico and the Fall of the Aztec Empire

    Article

    An opened book showing text on both sides with illustrations of fish

    A Getty Initiative to provide greater access to the Florentine Codex, the first Indigenous encyclopedia of the New World

    Oct 30, 2023

  2. Revitalizing an Endangered Indigenous Language

    Article

    Verdant greenery frames a distant mountain

    Two educators from Eastern Mexico are fostering Nahuatl in their local communities and through Getty’s Florentine Codex Initiative

    Nov 12, 2021

  3. Unearthing the Secrets of Color

    Article

    Rodriguez sits at a desk in a brightly lit room with plant and animal illustrations on the walls. Her desk holds many animal and botanical specimens and plants.

    How artist Sandy Rodriguez uses a 16th-century manuscript as contemporary inspiration

    Jan 13, 2021

  4. Getty Voices

    Article

    Details of a woodcut print depicting a temple

    Co-curator Kim Richter gives a glimpse of ancient Latin America’s cultural and linguistic plurality that have modern impacts

    Dec 05, 2013