Artist James Córdova on the Art and History of St. Teresa of Ávila

James Córdova joins us in a five-part series about the santero tradition to discuss his St. Teresa of Ávila bulto, a recent addition to our Spanish Colonial collection. Here he describes the history of St. Teresa of Ávila and his inspiration for this santo.

View the rest of the series on our Vimeo page.

James is Associate Professor of Art History in Pre-Colombian and Colonial Latin American Art at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was recently awarded tenure and promotion. In 2014 he published his first book, with the University of Texas Press, entitled The Art of Professing in Bourbon Mexico: Crowned-Nun Portraits and Reform in the Convent, which offers a pioneering interpretation of so-called “crowned nun” portraits in eighteenth-century Mexico. He has also been instrumental in the creation of a new Ph.D. program at CU Boulder that will prepare graduate students for careers in curatorial and other museum roles. James grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico and began making santos when he was 14 years old.