A world premiere is happening right here in Dallas! The Meadows Museum at SMU is presenting Spectacles of Power and Faith: Colonial South American Art from the Thoma Foundation, on view from August 23, 2026 through January 24, 2027 — and Dallas is the first city in the world to host it.
The exhibition brings together 63 colonial-era paintings created between 1600 and 1850 in what are today Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. Drawn from the renowned collection of Spanish Americas art of Carl and Marilynn Thoma, many of these luminous works are recent acquisitions being exhibited and published for the very first time.
Curated by SMU’s Adam Jasienski and the Thoma Foundation’s Verónica Muñoz-Nájar, the show celebrates the expressive power of colonial South American painting and its stories of faith, family, creativity and community. It’s a rare chance to see how artists across the Andes and beyond transformed European traditions into something vibrantly their own.
Don’t miss this once-in-a-generation debut — world premieres don’t happen every day, and this one chose Dallas!
Photo: Meadows Museum
