Museo de Aguascalientes

The Museo de Aguascalientes stands on General Ignacio Zaragoza, a short walk south of Plaza de la Patria, in a white neoclassical and Art Nouveau building completed in 1903 to designs by Refugio Reyes Rivas, the self-taught architect responsible for much of the city's early twentieth-century character. A colonnaded facade and a top-lit central patio set the tone, and galleries open off the patio on both levels. The collection is the strongest concentration of fine art in the state of Aguascalientes. Its core is the work of sculptor Jesús F. Contreras, the Aguascalientes-born artist whose marble Malgré Tout — a bound female nude carved after he lost his right arm — is the museum's signature piece and one of the best-known Mexican sculptures of the nineteenth century. Paintings by Saturnino Herrán, another native son and a pivotal figure in the shift toward a distinctly Mexican modern art, hang alongside works by Gabriel Fernández Ledesma and other regional artists, with temporary exhibitions occupying part of the upper floor. The building faces the Templo de San Antonio de Padua, also by Reyes, so the two are naturally seen together. A visit takes about an hour to an hour and a half. Opening hours run Wednesday to Sunday from 12:00PM to 6:00PM, with Monday and Tuesday closed, and admission is only $10 MXN for adults and $5 MXN for students, teachers and INAPAM card holders. The patio's overhead light is best in the early afternoon, and the exterior colonnade photographs well from across Zaragoza with the San Antonio domes behind. Weekday afternoons are the quietest; weekends bring more local families, and school groups can fill the ground-floor galleries midweek in term time. Tickets are sold at the door only, with no timed entry or advance booking, and the low price makes it easy to combine with the Museo Nacional de la Muerte and the Museo José Guadalupe Posada in a single museum day.