National Museum of Mexican Art Presents Ongoing ‘Nuestras Historias’ Collection Exhibition

The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago is continuing its presentation of ‘Nuestras Historias: Stories of Mexican Identity from the Permanent Collection,’ an ongoing exhibition in the museum’s Permanent Collection Gallery. The museum describes it as its flagship exhibition, built from works that examine the changing and varied nature of Mexican identity in North America across different periods, regions and communities.

Curated by Cesáreo Moreno, ‘Nuestras Historias’ draws on the museum’s permanent collection to present ancient Mesoamerican and colonial artifacts alongside modern Mexican art, folk art and contemporary works from both sides of the US–Mexico border. Rather than organizing Mexican identity around a single chronological or cultural narrative, the exhibition emphasizes its diversity and continual evolution. The museum’s Spanish-language listing gives the exhibition the subtitle ‘La Identidad Mexicana en la Colección Permanente.’

The participating artists include Josefina Aguilar, Carlos Almaraz, Alfredo Arreguin, David Ávalos, Rocío Caballero, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Cortéz, Olga Costa, Jean Charlot, Carmen Lomas Garza, Nicole Marroquin, Alejandro Nava, Marcos Raya, Patssi Valdez, Vincent Valdez and Guillermo Vargas Alberto, among many others. The presentation also includes works by more than one hundred anonymous artists.

A featured work is Jesús Helguera’s ‘La leyenda de los volcanes (The Legend of the Volcanoes),’ an oil painting from 1940 acquired through the Museum Campaign Fund in recognition of the museum’s president and founder, Carlos Tortolero. The collection display also highlights folk art, including Alfonso Castillo Orta’s ‘Máscara con figuras pre-Cuauhtémoc (Mask with pre-Cuauhtémoc Figures),’ made in 1992. The range of artists and objects reflects the museum’s broader commitment to presenting Mexican cultural expression from its own point of view and voice.

The museum has scheduled a free guided tour of ‘Nuestras Historias’ on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, as part of Late Wednesdays, its monthly evening opening, with registration handled through the museum’s website (source: the museum’s newsletter of August 21, 2026).

The institution dates to 1982, when Carlos Tortolero and a group of fellow educators founded the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum; it opened to the public in 1987, moved into a 48,000-square-foot building in Pilsen in 2001 and took its present name in 2006. It holds more than 22,000 works reaching from ancient Mexico to the present and was the first Latino museum accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (source: the museum’s history page).

Admission is always free and the galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; on the first Wednesday of each month the museum stays open until 8 p.m. for Late Wednesdays. ‘Nuestras Historias’ is on view on an ongoing basis at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th Street, Chicago.