Library Guides: Art &amp; Architecture: Latin America &amp; the Caribbean: Latin American Library Special Collections

About

The Latin American Library Special Collections hold a rich array of primary sources for the study of art and architectural history.

To search finding aids of manuscript, ephemera, and image collections, use Tulane's Archival Collections Search.

Rare books, journals, pamphlets, and microforms are cataloged in Library Search.

Below are key collections and discovery tools. Contact LAL@tulane.edu for more information or to set up an appointment in the reading room.

Digital Collections

Mesoamerican Painted Manuscripts at The Latin American Library
Digital surrogates of Mexican pictorial manuscripts from the colonial period held in The Latin American Library Special Collections.
Early Images of Latin America
"Early Images of Latin America" currently contains over 1,800 digital images from the Latin American Library’s Image Archive documenting people, places, landscapes, urban and rural scenes in countries from across Latin America and the Caribbean. They date from the late 19th century to c. 1910.

Search the Early Images Collection using the subject term "Mining". More images can be viewed in their original formats at the Latin American Library.

Image Archive

The Latin American Library Image Archive, one of only a handful of such collections in the United States, holds over 110,500 individual images from virtually every country in Latin America.

Holdings in the Image Archive are searchable via Tulane University's online instance of ArchiveSpace.

You can also browse the following collections inventories:

William Spratling & Silver Design

Sutherland-Taxco Collection
1930s-present. Original silver design drawings and sketches for book illustrations, photographs, taped and videotaped interviews of silver designers and silversmiths, prints portfolios, two watercolor paintings, and other material documenting the work of William Spratling and other major figures in Mexico's modern silver and crafts industry, including Chato, Coco, Miguel, and Antonio Castillo (Los Castillo) Margot van Voorhies Carr (1896-1985), Frederick W. Davis (1880-1961) and Sigfrido Pineda (b. 1929). 1,497 design drawings; 866 pieces.

Art Ephemera

Ephemera are a class of print collectible materials that defy a precise definition but in general, ephemera pieces are made of paper, printed (though sometimes handwritten); two-dimensional; transient and incidental; and often visually attractive or unique. Ephemera can therefore appear in a variety of formats such as broadsides, brochures, flyers, posters, souvenir cards, pamphlets, invitations, certificates, menus, announcements, and ballots to name just a few examples.

Among LAL printed ephemera holdings is a thematically focused collection of Latin American Art Ephemera from the 20th and 21st centuries:

Latin American Library Art Ephemera Collections
Includes materials from art galleries, exhibitions, and museums from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Europe, El Salvador, Peru, Uruguay.

Architecture

Emilio Harth-Terré Photograph Collection
A collection of the professional papers of the noted Peruvian architect, Emilio Harth-Terré. The materials relate to the art and architecture of colonial Peru. The collection of 36 boxes and 5 oversize folders includes some professional correspondence; manuscripts of articles by Harth-Terré and others; reprints and clippings; very extensive notes and transcripts of documents in various civil and church archives in Peru on gold- and silversmiths and Indian, black, and mestizo artisans and painters; also notes on various colonial public buildings, churches, convents, and monasteries. 1930-1970
Abraham Guillén Photograph Collection
A collection of 860 photographs of the lifestyle of indigenous people, city and country scenes, archaeological sites, colonial and modern architecture and pre-Hispanic, colonial and folk art in Peru. 1940s-1960s.

Art & Architecture: Latin America & the Caribbean

The Latin American Library Librarians