Casa del Arte José Clemente Orozco (Pinacoteca UdeC)
University art gallery whose entrance hall holds the mural Presencia de América Latina.
The Casa del Arte, known locally as the Pinacoteca, is the art museum of the University of Concepción and holds the largest collection of Chilean painting outside Santiago, numbering around 1,800 works together with prints, a small group of sculptures and the university photographic archive. Its galleries show the permanent collection alongside temporary exhibitions of Chilean and regional artists, and admission is free. The building also houses the university's school of visual arts.
The building was completed in 1958 to designs by the architects Osvaldo Cáceres and Alejandro Rodríguez. Its entrance hall is filled by the mural Presencia de América Latina, painted between 1964 and 1965 by the Mexican artist Jorge González Camarena as a gift from the Mexican government after the 1960 Valdivia earthquake. Covering some 300 square metres, the mural depicts the shared history and peoples of Latin America and was declared a national historic monument in 2009.
Highlights
- Presencia de América Latina, a 300 square metre mural of 1964-65
- Around 1,800 Chilean paintings, the largest such collection outside Santiago
- Free entry on the University of Concepción campus
- Modernist building of 1958 by Osvaldo Cáceres and Alejandro Rodríguez
