MAMFA has traditionally been an important resource for museum curators planning to acquire or exhibit Latin American art. We have helped museums all around the world locate lost works for exhibitions, since our wide collector contacts have frequently put us in the position of knowing where things are. Collectors can count on our discretion as we never reveal the location of works without first obtaining the owner’s permission.
In some cases we have acted as the lender’s agent with the museum, thus preserving the collector’s privacy while enabling the public to view a work that would otherwise have remained hidden away in a private collection. We are frequently called upon to negotiate the terms of loans with collectors, provide insurance appraisals for works being lent by collectors to museums, and for works going from one museum to another. In several cases we have provided insurance valuations for entire exhibitions.
Since the founding of MAMFA, Mary-Anne Martin has acted as the special advisor to a number of prestigious shows, among them Diego Rivera, the Cubist Years, at the Phoenix Art Museum and IBM Gallery, NY in 1984, the Diego Rivera Retrospective traveling show organized in 1985 by the Detroit Institute of Arts, the 1988 Tamayo exhibition organized by the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Frida Kahlo traveling exhibition held in Tokyo by Seibu in 1989, Mexico, Splendors of Thirty Centuries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1990, Mexican Renaissance (Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros) at Nagoya City (Japan) Art Museum in 1989 and the Rufino Tamayo Retrospective organized by Nagoya in 1993, the Leonora Carrington exhibition for 1997 and 1998 by the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper organization and, most recently, the Frida Kahlo retrospective exhibitions at the Tate Modern, London, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin.