Founded by María Inés Sicardi in 1994, Sicardi Gallery was among the very first in the United States to represent avant-garde and contemporary artists from Latin America. As of today, the gallery is known as Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino in recognition of its founder’s twenty-four year partnership with Allison Armstrong Ayers and Carlos Bacino.
The gallery represents a provocative range of artists, from such modernist masters as Jesus Rafael Soto, Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt) and Carlos Cruz-Diez, to internationally recognized contemporary artists, including Oscar Muñoz, Liliana Porter, Miguel Angel Rojas, Marco Maggi and Gabriel de la Mora, as well as the Estates of León Ferrari, Manuel Espinosa, Mercedes Pardo and Alejandro Otero. These artists have been instrumental in shaping the character and dynamics of the gallery, inspiring an innovative program of solo and cross-generational exhibitions as well as promoting experimental artistic urban projects, worldwide. Growing in tandem with the emerging field of modern Latin American art in Houston and the US, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino extends its reach by advancing new models of artistic production and intellectual collaboration with universities, museums and other cultural organizations.
Through strong relationships with artists, curators, art historians, and art collectors, the gallery continues to place its represented artists’ work in seminal museums and collections, build and disseminate research on these artists, and remain a stimulating platform for intellectual debate and creative exploration within the community. The gallery has collaborated with and placed work in such preeminent institutions and collections in the United States as Akron Art Museum; Art Institute of Chicago; Blanton Museum of Art; The Cleveland Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Davis Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA]; The Menil Collection; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles [MOCA]; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston [MFAH]; National Gallery of Art; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Pérez Art Museum Miami [PAMM]; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Princeton University Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art [SFMOMA]; and University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive [BAMPFA]; and internationally, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires [MALBA]; and Tate Modern.
Designed by Brave Architecture, the gallery building is located in the heart of Houston’s Museum District, directly across from The Menil Collection. The 5,900 sq.ft. gallery includes two floors of exhibition space and a research center with archives and a library. Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA), an invitation-only organization that recognizes the highest levels of expertise and professional standards in the art market.