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Patricia Phelps de Cisneros

Patricia Phelps de Cisneros collects Latin American art, especially geometric abstraction, along with contemporary work. Her gifts have reshaped how museums hold this material, most of all at MoMA in New York. The Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros also supports education and scholarship.

Artists named in the collection

Lygia Clark, Gego, Helio Oiticica, Jesus Rafael Soto, Alejandro Otero, Raul Lozza, Rhod Rothfuss

On record

  • Gave MoMA 102 Latin American works from the 1940s to the 1990s, announced in 2016, with a research institute on the art of the region.
  • A 2018 gift of about 200 works went to six museums, roughly 90 of them to MoMA.
  • MoMA's show Sur moderno drew heavily on the gifts.

Institutional roles

  • Founder, MoMA Latin American and Caribbean Fund (2006)
  • MoMA trustee (as of 1998)

Questions

What does Patricia Phelps de Cisneros collect?Patricia Phelps de Cisneros collects Latin American art, especially geometric abstraction, along with contemporary work. Her gifts have reshaped how museums hold this material, most of all at MoMA in New York. The Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros also supports education and scholarship.

Which artists are in the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros collection?Cited sources name works by Lygia Clark, Gego, Helio Oiticica, Jesus Rafael Soto, Alejandro Otero, Raul Lozza, Rhod Rothfuss.

Sources

  1. MoMA boosts Latin American holdings with Cisneros collection, The Art Newspaper, 2016
  2. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in ARTnews 2022, Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, 2022
  3. A survey of ten Latin American collectors, The Art Newspaper, 1998

Last verified 2026-10-31.

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Eugenio Lopez Alonso, Amalia Amoedo, Jose Berardo, Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, Norman and Irma Braman, Pierre Chen