O’Higginiano and Fine Arts Museum of Talca

Talca’s O’Higginiano and Fine Arts Museum opened in 1964. However, it traces its history back to 1929 when local sculptor and teacher José Miguel Cruz founded the Talca Fine Arts Museum in a local school in order to safeguard the paintings of local families in the wake of an earthquake that had devastated the city.  

This collection was inherited by the current Museum, which has since been enriched by other donations from local families and institutions. It is named after Bernardo O'Higgins, the soldier of Spanish-Irish descent who played a leading role in Chile’s fight for independence from Spain and became its first Supreme Director. 

O’Higgins was born in the nearby city of Chillán. However, he spent part of his childhood in Talca in the care of a local family, possibly in the house now occupied by the Museum. 

The building 

The building occupied by the Museum is known as the Casa de la Independencia (House of the Independence). It was here that O’Higgins approved Chile's Act of Proclamation of Independence in 1818.

The house is believed to have been built in the 1790s. Records show that it passed through a number of different owners until, in the early 1960s, it was acquired by the state.  

Built principally of adobe and wood with an overhanging tile roof, the house is typical of Chilean colonial architecture. Organized around courtyards, it is low and has relatively few windows and doors, looking inwards rather than out to the street. 

Inside the Museum

The Museum is currently closed and its collections are in storage. They comprise some 2,000 objects including:   

• Paintings. A collection of work by key Chilean painters from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.  

• Historical documents and manuscripts. Documents from the end of the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, relating mainly to the Independence period and the city of Talca. A key item is the diploma bestowed on Bernardo O'Higgins by the State of Peru naming him Grand Marshal.   

• Furniture and household objects. A collection from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including some objects that belonged to Javiera Carrera, a woman who supported Chile’s struggle for Independence by hiding soldiers and facilitating the movement of weapons. 

• Weapons and military implements. Objects from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, used principally in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). 

The Museum also includes the Guillermo Feliú Cruz Heritage Library, with important resources about Chilean history.