Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance Initiative

This initiative comprises the first systematic study of how pre-Hispanic art became an essential focus of collecting practices for museums and private collections across North America and Europe. It makes a foundational contribution to the study and preservation of Latin American cultural heritage by analyzing the looting, commodification, and circulation of pre-Hispanic material culture between the mid-19th and late-20th centuries. 

• Three international symposia, each accompanied by an edited volume:
  • Collecting Mesoamerican Art before 1940: A New World of Latin American Antiquities (2024)
  • Collecting Mesoamerican Art, 1940s to 1960s: Museums, Markets, and Modernism in the United States and Mexico (forthcoming 2025)
  • Collecting Mesoamerican Art in the Twentieth Century: Revealing Histories of the International Art Market (forthcoming 2026)
• Digitization of selected Stendahl Art Galleries archival materials, including photographs, film, inventories, and correspondence (2020)
• Transcription and annotation of Stendahl family letters (forthcoming 2025)
• Transcription of Stendahl Art Galleries stock books and dissemination of stock book data (forthcoming 2026)
• A public exhibition on Stendahl Art Galleries and the sale of pre-Hispanic art in mid-century Los Angeles (forthcoming 2026)

Project Team

Project Sponsor
Mary Miller, Getty Research Institute

Project Lead
Andrew Turner, Getty Research Institute

Project Manager
Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Getty Research Institute

Research Specialists
Kylie King, Getty Research Institute
Michael Mathiowetz, Getty Research Institute
Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Getty Research Institute

Getty Provenance Index Partners
Kelsey Garrison, Getty Research Institute
Sandra van Ginhoven, Getty Research Institute

External Project Advisors
Megan O’Neil, Emory University
Matthew Robb, Library of Congress

GRI Public Programs Coordinator
William Ramirez, Getty Research Institute

External Collaborating Researchers
Christopher Beekman, University of Colorado Denver
Maria Galbán, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian
Ángel González López, North Carolina Museum of Art Ellen Hoobler, Walters Art Museum
Adam Sellen, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

GRI Advisory Committee
Sally McKay, Getty Research Institute
Emily Pugh, Getty Research Institute
Kim Richter, Getty Research Institute
Nancy Um, Getty Research Institute
Sandra van Ginhoven, Getty Research Institute
Khristaan Villela, Getty Research Institute

GRI Interns
Bruno Buccalon, Graduate Intern, 2024–25
Henna Khanom, Graduate Intern, 2023–24
Jennifer de Leon, LEAP Intern, 2023–24
Bárbara Romero Ferrón, Graduate Intern, 2022–23
Jessica Craig, Graduate Intern, 2021–22
Dulce Hernandez, Getty Marrow Undergraduate Intern, 2020

Special Thanks
Transcribers: Martha Alfaro, Miriam Amico, David Castro, Sam Ceja, Elle del Campo, Andra Darlington, Evan Dresman, Lyndsey Godwin-Kresge, Beth Guyn, Mahsa Hatam, Dulce Hernandez, Frank Lopez-Huerta, Theresa Marino, Lauren McDaniel, Emmabeth Nanol, Rachel Poutasse, Daniel Powazec, Adrian Salas, Anna Cera Sones, Renee Tabizon, Erica Wofford
Guillermo Echániz Correspondence Research Guide: Annalise Welte, Sally McKay