Arte Popular: The Rex May Collection of Mexican Folk Art

By The Mexican Museum

Arte Popular features 100 pieces from Rex May's extensive collection of exquisite hand-crafted objects from all over Mexico.

Coming from the reputable Mexican Museum, this volume demonstrates the dramatic power of folk art.

This bilingual volume provides a veritable treasure trove of discoveries for the curious reader.

• Features bold and atmospheric photographs
• Includes scholarly essays that delve into the collection's origins and significance
• A visual treat for lovers of Mexican art, craft, and visual culture

The Rex May Collection–bequeathed to the Mexican Museum by the legendary 39-Mile-Drive sign designer–demonstrates the dramatic power of folk art.

This book is a companion to the opening of the Mexican Museum building in downtown San Francisco's Yerba Buena museum neighborhood.

• Perfect for museum goers and fans of Mexican arts and crafts
• The Mexican Museum has been a San Francisco cultural destination and educational resource for 37 years, and became the only San Francisco affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in 2012.
• You'll love this book if you love books like Mexican Details by Joe P. Carr and Karen Witynski, Crafts of Mexico by Margarita de Orellana and Alberto Ruy Sanchez, and Masks of Mexico: Tigers, Devils, and the Dance of Life by Barbara Mauldin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Feb 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781797209036

The Mexican Museum

The Mexican Museum is home to one of North America's largest collections of art showcasing the richness and complexity of Latino culture.

Book preview

Introduction

David J. de la Torre

Director, 1984–1989 + 2013–2015

The Mexican Museum

The Rex May Collection represents the largest group of objects that The Mexican Museum has received in its forty-year history, consisting of 1,400 objects from all over the world, primarily from México and Latin America.

My first introduction to Rex May and his work occurred in the 1980s when colleagues and friends encouraged me to visit the Christmas Store on Sacramento Street in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights. I remember peering through the windows of the Victorian storefront and immediately being taken with the colorful, shimmering holiday ornaments from around the world. In the years that followed I became a regular customer, and little did I know that Rex May, the Christmas Store’s founder, and his legacy would become a significant part of my work with The Mexican Museum.

Rex May was born in San Antonio, Texas, and raised by middle-class parents, his father a local sheriff and his mother a practicing nurse. During the artist’s formative years, he regularly visited his grandmother in nearby Gonzales, and he made and sold ceramic tiles in front of the historic old Alamo. Growing up in the Southwest during the 1940s, May was most assuredly influenced by the Mexican culture as his creativity and entrepreneurial skills started to unfold.

In the late 1940s while attending the Art Students League in New York City, Rex May started a successful card-making business to support himself. In the 1950s, he moved to San Francisco, where his career continued to gain traction. San Francisco provided an extraordinary opportunity for May to engage in a multiethnic environment that would further develop his keen eye and aesthetic sensibilities.

In 1954–55 Rex May and his partner, Chuck Little, set up a silkscreen studio at 3067 Sacramento Street and continued the card-making business. Inspired by trips to China and Sri Lanka, May also began to make ornaments and decorative goods while freelancing for wholesale design companies. During this time he bought a house in Fairfax to pursue an interest in painting. Dora Bothwell, a professor he met at the San Francisco Art Institute, encouraged the artist to engage in experimental work and slinging paint on the wall. During this period, the artist also bought a large Victorian house on Page Street in San Francisco, where he amassed his Mexican and Latin American folk art collections from his continuing travels.

Also in 1954, Rex May entered a competition to design a sign for the 49-Mile Scenic Drive, a road tour that highlights the man-made and natural landmarks of San Francisco. His iconic rendering of a seagull in profile took first place in the competition and is to this day posted on roadways throughout the region. The award commission provided widespread recognition for May as an emerging graphic designer.

While Rex May’s business enterprises thrived, his personal interests as a collector of Mexican and Latin American art matured. During the 1960s he made his first trips to México. He became so enamored with the culture and people of México that he traveled to Taxco, Guerrero, in 1963 for an extended stay.

May continued to travel the world for the next twenty years gathering art objects. He installed pieces from his growing collection at the Page Street Victorian, which was often referred to as a museum, the treasures filling every room and wall. To the delight of family and friends, he also created meticulously designed dioramas—an assortment of miniature objects arranged in theatrical and everyday themes, staged and dramatically lit.

In 1980, Rex May and Chuck Little decided to turn their silkscreen studio on Sacramento Street into a kind of pop-up shop, where they displayed and sold ornaments collected from their world travels. May also advertised for local artists to make ornaments for the shop, which was dubbed the Christmas Store and was open for six weeks during the holiday season. The concept was to hang up anything that could be strung, with sales tags as detailed as museum labels.

In its first year of operation the Christmas Store generated more income in six weeks than from the card-printing business for the whole year. May and Little decided to close the print shop, and for the next six years they focused their energies on the Christmas Store, continuing to open the shop for the holiday season and gather inventory throughout the remainder of the year.

In 1986, both men retired, and the Christmas Store was closed for good. Then, in 1993, Rex May’s extraordinary life was cut short by the AIDS epidemic, as with too many talented, creative individuals of the time and place. Charles Little continues to live in the Sacramento Street house, upstairs from the former shop, and to preserve his lifelong partner’s memory.

In 2002, the bulk of the Rex May Collection of Mexican and Latin American art was bequeathed to The Mexican Museum. The Oakland Museum of California also shared in this gift and became the repository of the artist’s archives and the wonderfully creative and elaborate dioramas of everyday life that May created for his Page Street house.

The Rex May Collection represents the largest group of objects that The Mexican Museum has received in its forty-year history, consisting of 1,400 objects from all over the world, primarily from México and Latin America. Artifacts in the collection span 300 years of history from the 1800s on, and they represent a wide range of folk art expressions as well as superb examples of decorative and fine art traditions. Comprised of utilitarian and ritual objects made of a multitude of materials and mediums such as ceramics, stone, papier-mâché, straw, tin, wax, wood, glass, lacquer ware, and textiles, the Rex May folk art collection is one of the most important educational and historical resources cared for by The Mexican Museum.

The Mexican Museum is deeply indebted to Rex May’s close friend, business partner, and executor of his estate, Charles Little, for his commitment to finding an appropriate home for the Collection and for generous donations from the Rex May Charitable Trust to support the exhibition, care, and preservation of this important material.

We are also grateful to Dr. Marion Oettinger, Jr., longtime collaborator and supporter of The Mexican Museum, who first viewed and surveyed the Collection in 1995. Dr. Oettinger’s insightful essay, included in this book, provides formal and functional interpretations of the Collection for this volume.

For their contributions to the stewardship of the Rex May Collection, we thank Susan Burdick, Bea Carrillo, Carmen Lomas Garza, Lorraine García-Nakata, Andrea Jepson, Karen Iuppa, Susana Macarrón, Wendy Niles, Linda Waterfield, and Nora Wagner.

Lastly, I wish to thank Chronicle Books, particularly Jack Jensen and Bridget Watson Payne, for making the museum’s collections more accessible to wider audiences through high-quality publications like this one.

Rex May’s legacy and love for México and its people remains alive today due to the kindness and generosity of the artist and the many individuals who continue to share his deep appreciation of folk art as an essential expression of the human experience. We invite you to enjoy this book and to participate with us in celebrating and preserving these traditions so that they may continue to inspire and delight future generations.

David J. de la Torre

Director (1984–1989, 2013–2015),

The Mexican Museum

Introducción

David J. de la