From paintings and sculptures to personal altars and retablos, devotional objects permeated everyday life in New Spain, or present-day Mexico, from the 16th through 19th centuries. These objects were instructional in nature, used by the Catholic Church to teach Christianity to Spanish settlers, and also to convert the indigenous populations of the Americas. Taken almost entirely from EPMA’s collection and complemented by a significant loan from the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, Saints and Sacred Stories speaks to the extraordinary range of EPMA’s collection of Mexican art and illuminates the instructional nature of devotional objects, contextualizing them within daily social life of New Spain.

Support for this exhibition is provided by Texas Commission on the Arts and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.