Joaquín Torres-García (Uruguay, 1874-1949), "New York Docks," 1920. Oil and gouache on cardboard. Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Collection Société Anonyme.

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The New-York Historical Society and El Museo del Barrio unite to present a joint history lesson this fall.

Nueva York (1613-1945) examines New York’s long term romance with Spain and Latin America, and how those countries have helped shape Manhattan’s cultural character.

Combining the resources of New York’s oldest museum and its leading Latino cultural institution, the show highlights three centuries of history.

Using interactive displays, listening stations, video and over two hundred rare and historic maps, letters, and drawings, the exhibition spans from the founding of New Amsterdam in the 1600s as a bastion against the Spanish empire, to the present day.

Works by New York artists and writers influenced by travels to Spain and South America such as Washington Irving, Frederic Church and William Merritt Chase will be on display.  Reflections of New York in paintings by modern Latin American artists including Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and Joaquin Torres-Garcia, are also featured.

Documentary filmmaker Ric Burns, best known for his eight-part PBS series New York: A Documentary Film, has created a film for the exhibition, to be shown in the museum’s theater.

Nueva York (1613 – 1945) will be on view from September 17, 2010, through January 9, 2011, at El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue (at 104th Street).