The permanent collection includes more than 1500 works of historic and contemporary Mexican, Latino, and Latin American art and material culture. The Museum’s primary holdings consist of The Serie Print Project Archive, the Ernesto F. de Soto Collection, Taller Grafica Popular Print Collection, Popular Mexican Dance Masks, and rare books within the Mexic-Arte Museum Library. Annually, the Museum acquires contemporary Latino art and integrates new acquisitions with exhibitions programming. The development of the Museum’s collection continues and will strive to reflect the pulse of Latino visual culture.

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The Mexic-Arte Museum is an institution that welcomes and fosters emerging Latinx artistic talent through annual programming such as the Young Latinx Artists exhibition and special programs commissions. Works in all media, including installations, murals, photographs, and sculpture from artists such as Adriana Corral, Miguel Aragon, Marcel Moran, Paloma Mayorga, David “Shek” Vega, Diego Huerta’s 31K Project Project are within the contemporary Latinx art holdings of the Permanent Collection.

In 2000, the Museum was designated as the official archive of prints from the Serie Print Project, a non-profit Latinx art organization and residency program that produces, promotes, and exhibits serigraph prints created by established and emerging artists. Throughout its twenty year tenure, artists such as Santa Barraza, Ester Hernandez, Alma Lopez, Delilah Montoya, Cesar Martinez, and Vincent Valdez have participated in the program. Each year, the annual suite produced during the residency is on view in the annex gallery in conjunction with the Young Latinx Artists exhibition.

The Ernest F. de Soto collection is one of the earlier print collections to comprise the Mexic-Arte Museum permanent collection. Ernest F. de Soto was the first Mexican American printer to be awarded the honor of Tamarind Master Printer, and is wellknown for his lithography workshops of the 1960s. With over 50 years of experience specializing in contemporary Latin American and American lithographs, fine prints and etchings by some of the best-known Latin American and American artists of our time, Master Printer Ernesto F. de Soto has created a significant collection and national treasure. Artists in the collection include Alejandro Colunga, Jose Luis Cuevas, Luis Jimenez, and Alfredo Varela among others.

In 1937, artists Leopoldo Méndez, Pablo O’Higgins, Luis Arenal, and a small group of dedicated printmakers, created the Taller de Grafica Popular (TGP, Popular Graphic Workshop). The objective of the workshop was to create visual art dedicated to addressing and promoting social change. Productions emphasize 20th century Mexican history primarily related to historical figures, cultural heroes, and significant political events. Artists in the collection include Alberto Beltran, Angel Bracho, Arturo García Bustos, Fernando Castro Pacheco, Leopoldo Mendez, Alfredo Zalce, and others.

Ceremonial and decorative dance masks comprise the majority of Mexic-Arte Museum’s permanent collection. The recent acquisitions from the Patricia and Carmine De Vivi Mexican Mask Collection focuses largely on modern Mexican regional masks and their varied uses in folkloric narratives, religious practices, regional pageantry, and popular art. With the hybridization of indigenous rituals and Spanish colonial practices, the regional mask facilitated the ongoing shift and negotiation of cultural identities in Mexico. Early regional masks played key roles in morality dramas and dances used to teach the indigenous Catholicism and celebrate religious holidays such as Holy Week and Carnival. Dance masks continue to be a vital component in regional festivals and their aesthetic qualities have led to the emergence of an ever-growing commercial mask art industry.

Mexic-Arte Museum Library houses over 5,000 books and periodicals from the 19th century to the present. The non-circulating rare books include five volumes of the publication México a través de los siglos and Picture Book I and II by Jean Charlot. Other highlights of the library collection include limited edition exhibition catalogs, self-published works, and Mexic-Arte Museum publications.