Museo Universitario de Artes Populares María Teresa Pomar

The Museo Universitario de Artes Populares María Teresa Pomar, run by the University of Colima, is dedicated to Mexican folk art and is named for María Teresa Pomar, a Colima-born collector and folk-art advocate whose personal holdings formed the founding collection. Housed in a restored building in Colima City's Centro Histórico, the museum's permanent galleries display masks, textiles, ceramics, lacquerware, and ceremonial objects gathered from across Mexico's regional folk-art traditions, with particular depth in pieces from western Mexico including Colima, Michoacán, and Jalisco. The collection includes devil and dance masks used in traditional festivals, alongside pottery and woven goods that illustrate regional variation in Mexican craft techniques. Curatorial presentation is organized thematically by craft type and regional tradition rather than strict chronology, allowing side-by-side comparison of mask-making or ceramic styles across different states. The building itself, a converted colonial-era residence, has been adapted with gallery lighting and display cases while retaining its original courtyard layout. The museum periodically hosts temporary exhibitions and craft demonstrations that connect the permanent collection to contemporary Mexican folk-art practice, reflecting Pomar's original mission of documenting living traditions rather than treating folk art purely as historical artifact.