Museums

Many of the museums in Old San Juan close for lunch between 11:45am and 2pm, so schedule your activities accordingly if you intend to museum-hop.

The Best Places to See Puerto Rican Art

With its dozen or so museums and even more art galleries, Old San Juan is the greatest repository of Puerto Rican arts and crafts. Galleries sell everything from pre-Columbian artifacts to paintings by well-known artists such as Angel Botello, who died in 1986, and Rafael Tufiño, who died in 2008. There's also contemporary traditional crafts, like santos, the hand-carved wooden saints the island is known for. Galleries also show a large cast of talented established and up-and-coming contemporary artists.

Noches de galleria, or Gallery Nights, take place the first Tuesday of each month and offer visitors an excellent opportunity to experience the island's vibrant art scene. Most galleries have openings or special exhibits, as well as wine and cheese receptions, and occasionally live music or theatrical performances. Bars and restaurants get into the act and hold art shows or performances. Around about midnight, it all mixes into a terrific party along Calle San Sebastián. If you'd rather visit during the day, a cluster of galleries is spread along Calle Cristo and Calle San José, which is one block east. The Galería Nacional, or National Gallery, located inside Old San Juan's Antiguo Convento de los Dominicos, a restored former convent, has exhibits from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture's vast holdings. It displays many of the most important works by Puerto Rican painters, from José Campeche and Francisco Oller to Rafael Tufiño and the generation of painters from the 1950s (tel. 787/977-2700). Another good place to see Puerto Rican art is the Museum of History, Anthropology & Art (tel. 787/763-3939). Because of space limitations, the museum's galleries can exhibit only a fifth of their vast collection at one time, but the work is always top-notch. The collection ranges from pre-Columbian artifacts to works by today's major painters.

Santurce, however, is equally important as the Old City, now that it has some of the island's top museums. The grandest repository of art in San Juan is at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, which is a virtual textbook on all the big names in the art world who rose from Puerto Rico, often to international acclaim. The gorgeously restored building is also part of the appeal, as are the adjoining botanical gardens. The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (tel. 787/977-4030; aves. Ponce de León and Robert H. Todd) is also an exceptional museum in a restored brick schoolhouse, showing contemporary art from Puerto Rico, but also throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Outside San Juan, the greatest art on the island can usually be seen at the Museo de Arte de Ponce. In addition to such European masters as Reubens, Van Dyck, and Murillo, the museum features works by Latin American artists, including Diego Rivera. Puerto Rican artists who are represented include José Campeche and Francisco Oller. CIRCO, an international art fair held at the new Puerto Rico Convention Center annually in April, is growing in stature and quality each year, and many local art venues plan special shows for the occasion.

Unfortunately, the museum is closed for major renovations until 2010 -- but it continues to be a force in the island's art scene through an exhibition space at the San Juan's Plaza Las Américas, the largest mall in the Caribbean, where it will hold shows until its south-coast home is renovated. The inaugural show at the temporary space during the summer of 2008 was a pop art exhibition featuring such giants as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Cindy Sherman. The new space is known as MAPR at Plaza (Av. Roosevelt 525, 3rd floor, Plaza Las Américas; tel. 787/200-7090 or 787/848-0505).