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Puerto Rico joins Blue Star Museums
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The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña) is one of the latest members of the Blue Star Museums honor roll. The Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) is Puerto Rico's state arts agency and administers a network of fourteen museums and parks throughout the island, all of which will offer free admission to military families now through Labor Day. ICP is among the 917 Blue Star Museums that have joined the efforts to provide greater access to active duty military families all summer long. The free admission program concludes after Labor Day (September 6, 2010).
French Landscape by Francisco Oller, 1895, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Puerto Rico
The ICP network includes The National Gallery, which showcases the largest collection of Puerto Rican fine art from the eighteenth century through the 1960s; exhibitions are complemented by gallery talks, concerts, and programs for schools and youth. Housed in a former convent, the Gallery presents masterworks by Puerto Rico's first visual artist, Jose Campeche, as well as Francisco Oller, one of the original members of the Impressionist movement. The Caguana Indigenous Ceremonial Park is an important reunion site of the Taíno, pre-Columbian inhabitants of Puerto Rico. The National Library of Puerto Rico recently opened a new Children's Room with a collection of Puerto Rican literature, bilingual books, and ongoing children's activities.
Students at the National Library of Puerto Rico. Courtesy of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture
The Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in Burlington, Vermont also joined Blue Star Museums this week. The museum celebrates the colorful life of Ethan Allen, who started as a New England frontiersman, became a Revolutionary war hero through his capture of Fort Ticonderoga from the British, and was a leading proponent of statehood for Vermont. The Homestead invites families to learn about colonial frontier life through hands-on activities like bartering and trading, and colonial-era games.
Blue Star Museums is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Star Families, a national, non-partisan, non-profit network of military families from all ranks and services including guard and reserve, with a mission to support, connect and empower military families. Learn more about Blue Star Museums across the country at www.arts.gov.
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