How do photographs and prints shape what we see—and understand—about a place and its people? The Sun Never Sets: Photographs and Prints of Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico from the Hispanic Society Museum and Library explores images of Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico during the final decades of Spanish colonial rule, when photography and printmaking offered new ways to picture and circulate the empire during the mid to late nineteenth century. The exhibition takes its title from the sixteenth-century refrain “el imperio donde nunca se pone el sol,” or “the empire where the sun never sets,” which celebrated the global reach of the Spanish monarchy. The photographs, prints, and albums on view depict streets and harbors, plantations and public buildings, and the people who inhabited these spaces. But these images are not neutral records. Made for particular purposes and audiences, they reflect the perspectives of those who created and commissioned them. Bringing together rare works from the Hispanic Society Museum and Library, including some never before exhibited, The Sun Never Sets offers an opportunity to encounter these compelling images alongside writings by Puerto Rican poet and independence activist Lola Rodríguez de Tió, Filipino revolutionary Andrés Bonifacio, and Cuban writer and revolutionary José Martí. Together, the works on view and writings invite visitors to consider how visual representations shape our understanding of places, people, and histories. The Sun Never Sets is curated by Elisa Germán, Lunder Curator of Works on Paper and Whistler Studies.

The Sun Never Sets: Photographs and Prints of Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico from the Hispanic Society Museum and Library

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