Museo Dolores Olmedo

The Museo Dolores Olmedo occupies La Noria, a former 16th-century hacienda in the Xochimilco district of southern Mexico City that businesswoman and art patron Dolores Olmedo acquired in 1962 and later converted into a museum bearing her name, which opened in 1994. Olmedo, a close friend, patron, and reputed confidante of Diego Rivera, amassed the world's largest private collection of his paintings, alongside a significant holding of works by Frida Kahlo (with whom she reportedly had a more contentious relationship) and pieces by Rivera's contemporary Angelina Beloff. Upon her death in 2002, Olmedo bequeathed an endowment for the museum's upkeep and stipulated that her collection remain intact and on public display at La Noria. The estate's landscaped gardens are themselves an attraction, home to peacocks, geese, and a flock of Xoloitzcuintle (Mexican hairless dogs), the ancient breed Rivera and Olmedo both favored. In 2021 the governing trust announced plans to relocate part of the collection to a new Chapultepec park venue, a move that contradicted Olmedo's wishes and sparked years of public controversy and activist opposition (notably from the group Defendamos al Olmedo); combined with pandemic-era closure, the museum shut its doors for roughly six years. Following extensive cataloguing, conservation, and renovation — including opening Olmedo's private quarters to the public for the first time — the museum reopened at its original Xochimilco site on 30 May 2026, with all artworks returned intact.