William Spratling Museum

William Spratling was an American architect and writer from New Orleans who came to Taxco in the late 1920s and ended up transforming it. Before Spratling, the town's silver trade had largely collapsed. He recognized that pre-Hispanic forms and indigenous craftsmanship could be combined with modern design sensibility to create something new, and he set about proving it. The museum dedicated to him occupies a colonial building near the church and tells both sides of his work: the man and the craftsman.

The collection has two distinct rooms. The first contains Spratling's own silver designs — elegant, architecturally influenced pieces that still look contemporary. The second displays his collection of pre-Hispanic artifacts: ceramics, jade, gold work, and obsidian objects gathered over decades of living in Mexico. It is a substantial collection, well displayed, and gives some sense of why the forms fascinated him. If you are buying silver in Taxco, a visit here first is worth an hour — you will understand what you are looking at when you walk into the shops.

The museum is located just behind the Plaza Borda, down a short flight of steps. It keeps regular daytime hours and charges a small admission fee.

things to do museum
A story
Spratling arrived in Taxco in 1929 almost by accident — he had come to write a book about colonial Mexico and simply never left. Finding the town's silver tradition reduced to crude trinkets, he began designing pieces himself, trained local craftsmen to execute them, and opened a workshop called Las Delicias. Within a decade he had created an industry. By the 1940s Taxco had more silversmiths than any town in Mexico, and nearly all of them had learned their trade from Spratling or from someone who had.