Modern Love:

A new series of e-books carries on the Fundacin Cisneros campaign to champion the under-told story of Latin american art.

Thursday, February 14, 2013 The Wall Street Journal WHEN A YOUNG VENEZUELAN media scion named Gustavo Cisneros came to Manhattan from Caracas with his wife, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, soon after they married in the 1970s, they found a fast friend in the form of David Rockefeller. The philanthropic banker had met the couple after founding the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas, and soon invited them to join the International Council of New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was, as their daughter Adriana Cisneros de Griffin tells it, an eye-opening experience. "Everybody at MoMA knew about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlothat heavy Mexican art," says the 33-year-old.

"But my parents always had an affinity toward modernist works in Latin America. They realized that there were two stories of Latin American art, and only one that was known to the world." The revelation inspired them to create their own artistic organization, the Coleccin Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, to encourage a better understanding and appreciation of Latin American art. Thirty years later, the original goals of the foundation have largely been realized. Adriana, who became the foundation's president in 2009, points out that works by Latin-American artists now have a home at MoMA, where her mother sits on the board of trustees. And at any time there are hundreds of works from their collection on loan around the world, including the largest exhibition of their pieces to date, which opened in January at Madrid's Museo Reina Sofia. In February, the foundation launched its latest educational endeavor, a brainchild of Adriana's: a series of six e-books on influential Latin American artists (quotes and selected art from ebooks at right) aimed at students and art fans alike. The Cisneros family's commitment to sharing its treasures with the rest of the world signals the kind of openness and transparency that most collectors avoid. But, "we always like to say that we're not the owners of the collection, we're the custodians of these works of art," says Adriana. "And that's a whole different ball game." Brekke Fletcher In addition to the Feb. 20 e-book launch of the first six books in the "Conversaciones/Conversations" series, all forthcoming titles will be published simultaneously in print and digital editions. For more information about the e-books, visit http://www.coleccioncisneros.org.