EPMA’s European collection ranges from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century. The core of the European holdings is the Kress Collection, an outstanding group of fifty-seven tempera and oil paintings and two marble sculptures. The Kress Collection includes a thirteenth-century Byzantine Madonna, several outstanding Baroque pictures, and significant paintings of the 18th century. The gift of this extraordinary collection came from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which in turn laid the foundation for the establishment of EPMA. The Kress Collection has fostered continued donations which have added to the European, Mexican, American, and Contemporary collections through the years.

Predominantly Italian in origin, the Kress Renaissance paintings include altarpieces as well as portraits and mythological subjects by masters such as Filippino Lippi, Benedetto Bonfigli, Sano di Pietro, and Lorenzo Lotto. Works from the later periods of the Baroque and Rococo are more internationally diverse, including significant pieces by the Spanish Golden Age masters Jusepe de Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the French portraitists Hyacinthe Rigaud and Alexis-Simon Belle. Apart from the central Kress Collection, EPMA’s European holdings include numerous Old Master and modern works on paper.

In 2010, EPMA published a bilingual, 300-page catalog, European Treasures: International Gothic through Realism | Tesoros Europeos: Gótico Internacional hasta el Realismo, featuring scholarly entries on each of the fifty-nine artworks in the Kress Collection, as well as eight entries on significant artworks from EPMA’s other European holdings. The publication was made possible in part by the generous support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation, and the City of El Paso.