OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahomans are being given a rare chance to experience a world-class, centuries-spanning collection of masterworks that normally lives over 2,000 miles away as the Oklahoma City Museum of Art presents “The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from the Museo de Arte de Ponce.”
Located on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, the city of Ponce boasts one of the most remarkable artistic collections in the Caribbean in its landmark Museo de Arte de Ponce. But since the striking, midcentury building sustained damage in a rash of earthquakes that hit the island in 2020, the museum has largely been shuttered for maintenance and redesign.
And that’s left the massive collection of works from across more than a half-millennia of painting – from “old world,” European masters to 20th century Puerto Rican groundbreakers – in a state of limbo.
So the Museo’s team, led by chief curator Iraida Rodríguez-Negrón, created “The Sense of Beauty” as a nationwide traveling exhibition, bringing the highlights, icons, and breathtaking scope of one of Puerto Rico’s most diverse and encompassing art collections to cities across the US.
“We began developing projects like ‘The Sense of Beauty’ to keep our collection accessible to the public,” Rodríguez-Negrón said during a media tour of the exhibition, “and we decided to make a selection of works that are not only European… but we also have a very important collection of Puerto Rican art, which was an essential part of the collection from day one when the museum opened in 1959.”
Art history
Unlike many museum-specific traveling exhibitions that are made to highlight singular elements or themes in a collection, “The Sense of Beauty” was designed as a spotlight for its home institution just as much as for its widely diverse and varied archive of art.
Each gallery walks you through a different theme or area of artistic study – from society and life to natural landscapes to religion and old world Christianity and eventually to the beauty of the human form itself – but along the way, it also unfolds the story of the Museo de Arte de Ponce.
Founded in 1959 by philanthropist, collector, industrialist, and politician, Luis Ferré, the Museo de Arte de Ponce was designed from the beginning to represent the full scope and history of world art and painting while also elevating contemporary Puerto Rican art to the same height and acclaim.
The result is a sprawling collection of works spanning hundreds of years, nations, and artistic eras, all reflecting Ferré’s desire to build a legacy that would not only reinforce the cultural weight of Ponce, but would help to recontextualize the cultural identity of Puerto Rico as a whole after centuries of colonization.
“He was definitely a force of nature that not only helped the development of the museum, but also the careers of many artists in Puerto Rico,” Rodríguez-Negrón said of Ferré. “The majority of the collection was created under this idea that they wanted to collect works of art that were quality, independent of their popularity in the market. And that’s how they were able to also acquire all the wonderful Victorian artworks that were not popular at all at that moment.”
Harmony and dialogue
The eclectic selection of galleries and themes throughout the show is even derived from the Museo’s rich history, and from Ferré himself.
The exhibition name, “The Sense of Beauty,” along with the titles of each gallery are all taken from quotes and statements made by Ferré at the groundbreaking of the museum in Ponce, titles such as “The Life of the People” and “Religious Inspiration.”
“We decided to organize it thematically, because that way it would allow us to combine works from different eras and different regions,” said Rodríguez-Negrón, “as well to establish that dialogues and those harmonies that are very successful.”
That allows the works to be grouped together from across all gulfs of time, style, or prominence, with earlier European pieces of oil-painted, photo-realistic landscapes, Baroque religious works, and Pre-Raphaelite scenes hung alongside boldly colorful, expressionistic – sometimes even surreal or nearly abstract – contemporary pieces from 20th and 21st century Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rican paintings are always in conversation with the old world works, picking up the impressions and aesthetic revelations of the masterful, but stark, traditionalism and imbuing the same themes or approaches with their own unique fire and modernist interpretations.
“Puerto Rican art was instrumental in the museum from the beginning,” Rodríguez-Negrón told Free Press following the preview event. “It was definitely the first place where you can see the establishment of that dialog between Puerto Rican art and European art. You didn’t see that anywhere else.”
‘Flaming June’
The Museo de Arte de Ponce boasts one of the world’s finest collections of Victorian Era paintings, and some of the most iconic pieces from that collection have come to OKCMOA, in many cases exemplifying the contrast of their own nobility and regal traditionalism against the fluidity and expression of the museum’s Puerto Rican works.
But one Victorian piece – perhaps the singular star of the entire exhibition – bridges those worlds with its fiery coloration and its stunning and passionate depiction of pure, evocative beauty.
Frederic Leighton’s orange-draped sleeping beauty, “Flaming June,” has evolved from a long-forgotten footnote into one of the most iconic pieces of Victorian painting, and surely into the crown jewel of the Museo de Arte de Ponce’s massive collection.
Maybe the most eye-popping piece purchased in Ferré’s early days of collecting, “Flaming June” was once disregarded as a meaningless relic of its time, and so the painting came cheap to the Museo.
But its charm, its beauty, and its arresting simplicity have since elevated the piece to rare heights, and have given the Museo de Arte de Ponce its cornerstone.
“It’s a painting that is very special in our collection,” Rodríguez-Negrón said of the work. “In exhibitions like this one, she kind of opens the door.”
“The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from the Museo de Arte de Ponce” at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art is open now through September 20th.
For more, visit okcmoa.com and museoarteponce.org.
Brett Fieldcamp is the owner and Editor in Chief of Oklahoma City Free Press. He has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly two decades and served as Arts & Entertainment Editor before purchasing the company from founder Brett Dickerson in 2026.
He is also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
