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The Museo Alameda's current exhibition is Revolution & Renaissance: Mexico & San Antonio, 1910-2010.

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, this exhibition explores the evolution of art and culture in Mexico from 1910 through 1968, with particular attention to parallel and related cultural changes in San Antonio in the same years.

The show includes paintings, sculptures, and decorative art objects from a major private collection in San Antonio. On view will be works by many of the most famous Mexican artists of the twentieth century, including Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Roberto Montenegro, and José Guadalupe Posada, as well as diverse examples of folk art and furniture, from china poblana dresses to a piano covered in Aztec and Zapotec designs. 

Revolution & Renaissance opened in November 2010 and will close September 2011.

For more information about the exhibit, click here.

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Sobre Las Olas (Over the Waves) || Composed by Juventino Rosas, performed by New York Military Band, 1912

The waltz "Sobre las Olas" (or "Over the Waves") is the best known work of Mexican composer Juventino Rosas (1868–1894). It "remains one of the most famous Latin American pieces worldwide," according to the "Latin America" article in The Oxford Companion to Music. It was first published by Rosas in 1888. (source)

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As part of The Museo Alameda’s Golden Age of Mexican Cinema Film Series, we featured Sobre Las Olas (1950) starring Pedro Infante. This film is based on the period of time in which Mexican composer and violinist Juventino Rosas wrote his most famous waltz, “Sobre Las Olas,” or “Over the Waves.”

Pictured above is Juventino Rosas in 1894. (credit)

Click here to see a scene of Pedro Infante in the role of Juventino Rosas, as he conducts “Sobre Las Olas.”

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This summer, The Museo Alameda will be running "The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema" Film Series. This series highlights the movies made during the peak of the Mexican film industry between 1936 and 1969. 

Notable stars during this period include Maria Felix and Jorge Negrete (pictured above) as well as Pedro Infante, Dolores del Rio, and Cantinflas.

This film series has showcased movies such as 1950's Sobre Las Olas (Over the Waves), 1956's La Escondida (The Hidden One), and will showcase 1936's Alla en el Rancho Grande (Out on the Big Ranch). 

All screenings will be shown in their original Spanish audio with English subtitles.

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The Museo Alameda In 1949, Tano Lucchese, the legendary San Antonio businessman, built the largest movie palace in the United States dedicated to Spanish language entertainment. At the opening on March 9, 1949, Luchesse said, "The Alameda will be a permanent symbol of good faith and understanding between the Latin American and Anglo American where they might share and recognize two different cultures." By 1991, the theater had fallen into disrepair. A group of San Antonio visionaries promoted the rebirth of the Alameda as an important national icon symbolizing the contributions of Latinos to the cultural heritage of our country. The City of San Antonio supported this vision by donating the landmark properties and by contributing capital dollars to the redevelopment campaign. This moved inspired the AT&T Foundation, the Ford Motor Company, and the Ford Motor Company Fund to underwrite important elements of the Alameda's redevelopment. In 1996, Secretary I. Michael Heyman of the Smithsonian Institution announced a physical presence of the Smithsonian in San Antonio. This announcement designated the Museo Alameda as the first formal affiliate of the Smithsonian outside of Washington D.C. and gave birth to the Smithsonian's affiliations program. In May of the same year, Governor George W. Bush signed a joint resolution of the Texas legislature establishing the Museo Alameda as the official State Latino Museum. Soon thereafter, Michael Kaiser of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced a groundbreaking partnership with the Alameda Theater. These alliances breathed life into the idea proposed by founding chairman Henry R. Muñoz III: that the Alameda would become a national center for Latino arts and culture, fulfilling Tano Lucchese's dream of a place that tells the story of the Latino experience in America.