Teodoro Vidal Santoni (1923–2016) was a Puerto Rican government official, art historian, and

folklorist Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...

who collected

Puerto Rican art Puerto Rican art is the diverse historic collection of visual and hand-crafted arts originating from the island. The art of the Puerto Ricans (Spanish: ''puertorriqueños'' or ''boricuas'') draws from the various cultural traditions of the indig ...

. His donation of objects to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

in 1997 remains the largest donation from a single donor.

Biography

Teodoro Vidal was born in

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan ( , ; Spanish for "Saint John the Baptist, John") is the capital city and most populous Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality in the Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the ...

, in 1923 to Teodoro Vidal Sánchez and Lucila Santoni. His father was originally from

Fajardo Fajardo () is a Fajardo barrio-pueblo, town and a Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality part of the San Juan–Caguas–Guaynabo metropolitan area, San Juan-Caguas-Fajardo Combined Statistical Area in Puerto Rico. Fajardo is the hub of mu ...

and his mother from Ponce. He attended the

New York Military Academy New York Military Academy (NYMA) is a Private school, private, College-preparatory school, college preparatory, boarding school in Cornwall, New York, and one of the oldest List of United States military schools and academies, military schools i ...

and served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

and during the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

obtaining the rank of Captain. In 1953, he graduated from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

with a master's degree in business. He immediately went into public service as an assistant to Governor

Luis Muñoz Marín José Luis Alberto Muñoz Marín (February 18, 1898April 30, 1980) was a Puerto Rican journalist, politician, statesman and was the first elected governor of Puerto Rico, regarded as the "Architect of the Puerto Rico Commonwealth." In 1948 he ...

. He served as chief of protocol at

La Fortaleza La Fortaleza ( English: "the fortress"), also known as the ''Palacio de Santa Catalina'' (Saint Catherine's Palace), is the official residence and workplace of the governor of Puerto Rico. Located in the historic quarter of Old San Juan in the ...

, as a military advisor, and in cultural affairs. During his tenure in government, Vidal worked on historic preservation at La Fortaleza and served as a founding member of the board of directors for the

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña The ''Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña'' (), or ICP for short, is an institution of the Government of Puerto Rico responsible for the establishment of the cultural policies required in order to study, preserve, promote, enrich, and diffuse ...

. When Muñoz Marín retired in 1964, Vidal committed solely to working on Puerto Rico's cultural heritage through independent research, publishing, and collecting. He was honored throughout his lifetime in both

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

and in mainland United States for his work on the island's

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

. He died on January 16, 2016, in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the age of 92.

Collector

Vidal began collecting

one day when he was on his way to La Fortaleza and saw storefronts on the Calle del Cristo that were selling sculpted

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

s and other

folkloric Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also includes material ...

objects. His collection began with objects of this sort including furniture, masks, canes, tools, instruments, textiles, woodworking, and other decorative objects. He also collected fine art, including important paintings by

José Campeche José Campeche y Jordán (December 23, 1751 – November 7, 1809), is the first known Puerto Rican people, Puerto Rican visual artist and considered by art critics as one of the best rococo artists in the Americas. Campeche y Jordán loved to use ...

. He hoped that one day Puerto Rico would have a national museum for its art and traditions. By the early 1990s, his collection amounted to over 6,000 objects and he began to look for an institution that would be willing to house the collection. He believed the objects would begin to deteriorate if he did not find a suitable preservation solution for them. He initially tried to keep the objects on the island, looking for local institutions that would take his collection. In 1996 Marvette Pérez, a curator from the

National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center is a historical museum in Washington, D.C. It collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and m ...

, offered to take the entire collection on behalf of the

. About 4,000 objects from Vidal's collection were shipped and officially donated to the Smithsonian in 1997. This gift is the largest donation by a single individual to the National Museum of American History to date. Objects from Vidal's collection were featured in a 1997–2000 exhibition titled ''Puerto Rico: A Collector's Vision''. Some of the objects are installed in the permanent collection displays of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of American History. In his book ''The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States'', scholar Jorge Duany has carefully analyzed this collection, its relationship to Vidal, and its exhibition. The remaining objects from Vidal's collection that were left behind on the island were donated to the Luis Muñoz Marín Foundation. This included around 1,500 objects. Many of objects are on display in the foundation's center in

Scholar

In addition to collecting Puerto Rican art, Vidal also wrote numerous books and articles about the subject. He was considered an expert on José Campeche, as well as santo and other folkloric traditions on the island. He also studied the

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

, and spirituality of Puerto Rico.

Publications

* ''La Fortaleza, o Palacio de Santa Catalina''. (San Juan, 1964.) * ''Los milagros en metal y en cera de Puerto Rico''. (Photographs by Pablo Delano. San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1974.) * ''Santeros puertorriqueños''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1979.) * ''Las caretas de cartón del Carnaval de Ponce''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1982.) * ''San Blas en la tradición puertorriqueña''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1986.) * ''Las caretas de los vejigantes ponceños: modo de hacerlas''. (San Juan, 1988.) * ''Tres retratos pintados por Campeche''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1988.) * ''Tradiciones en la brujería puertorriqueña''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1989.) * ''Los Espada: escultores sangermeños''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1994.) * ''Cuatro puertorriqueñas por Campeche''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2000.) * ''La bruja puertorriqueña''. (2002) * ''La Monserrate negra con el niño blanco: una modalidad iconográfica puertorriqueña''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2003.) * ''El vejigante ponceño''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2003.) * ''José Campeche: portrait painter of an epoch''. (2004) * ''José Campeche: retratista de una época''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2005.) * ''Los reyes magos: tradición y presencia''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2005.) * ''El caballo en la obra de Campeche''. (San Juan: Museo de las Américas, 2006.) * ''Escultura religiosa puertorriqueña''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2006.) * ''El control de la naturaleza mediante la palabra en la tradición.'' (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2008.) * ''Oraciones romancísticas''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2009.) * ''Oraciones, conjuros y ensalmos en la cultura popular puertorriqueña.'' (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2010.) * ''Cuatro campeches de regreso en Puerto Rico''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2011.) * ''El Museo Nacional de Artes y Tradiciones Puertorriqueñas'' (2012) * ''Pinturas y esculturas puertorriqueñas antiguas''. (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2015.) * ''El arte de la miniatura en Puerto Rico'' (San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 2015.)

References

External links