Carlos Tortolero founds the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum (MFACM). He recruits fellow teachers - Martin Carroll, Louis Guadarrama Jr., Rich Kaleta, Olga Tortolero Kasper, and Helen Valdez to form the first board of directors. All of these teachers have a connection with Bowen High School located in South Chicago.

1987

Following the renovation of the Harrison Park Boat Craft Shop, the Museum opens on March 27, 1987.

The Museum's first traveling exhibition, ¡Adivina! Latino Chicago Expressions, is shown in el Museo de Arte in Mexico City.

The Museum has organized sixteen exhibitions in its history. The Museum presents the first and only U.S. Museum solo exhibition of Mexican artist, Francisco Toledo.

Mexican political leader Cuauhtémoc Cardenas speaks at the Museum.

The Museum's performing arts space opens.

The Museum presents the last solo exhibition of Rufino Tamayo held during his lifetime.

President of Mexico , Carlos Salinas de Gortari, visits the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and donates a collection of works of paper.

Teatro Vista, a Chicago Latino theater group, presents its first play at the Museum. The production is underwritten by the MFACM. Teatro Vista is the first of three local theater groups to have their initial presentation at the Museum and to be underwritten by the MFACM.

El Museo del Templo Mayor (The Aztec Main Temple Museum) and the MFACM sign a historic sister-museum agreement.

The MFACM presents La Vision del Cosmos , an exhibition featuring artifacts from pre-Cuauhtémoc (pre-1519 C.E.) Mexico . The exhibit marks the first time these art objects have ever been exhibited in a Mexican community in the U.S.

The Art of the Other Mexico , a contemporary art exhibition, is the Museum's first major traveling exhibit and elevates the MFACM to the national arena.

The exhibit travels to Mexico City , Oaxaca , Tijuana , San Francisco , Palm Springs , and New York City.

César Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers of America, speaks at the MFACM. This was his last public appearance in the Mexican community. He passed away a week later.

The Museums inaugurates its two performing arts festivals - Sor Juana and the Del Corazón Festival .

The Sor Juana Festival was the first important arts tribute to Sor Juana in the U.S. and has helped launch a rediscovery of her writing and revival of her ideas.

Mexico 's acclaimed performance artist, Jesusa Rodriguez makes her Chicago premiere at the Del Corazón Festival. Elena Poniatowska, a Mexican writer, makes her first appearance at the Museum.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services honors the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum at a White House ceremony for its accomplishments. First Lady Hillary Clinton presents the Museum with its award.

Octavio Paz, a Nobel Prize Winner, reads from his work at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum receives the Museum's Sor Juana Award.

Lola Beltrán makes her last appearance in Chicago at the Museum's Sor Juana Festival.

Carlos Fuentes, the award-winning author, makes his first of three visits to the Museum.

The Museum purchases the radio station WCYC and transforms it into Radio Arte WRTE 90.5 FM. Radio Arte becomes the first all-youth radio station in the country.

The Museum organizes the first solo exhibition of the work of Maria Izquierdo in the U.S. The exhibit travels to el Museo del Arte Moderno in Mexico City . Several years later, the Mexican government initiated the process to have Izquierdo's artwork declared a Mexican patrimony.

The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum sponsors Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago in the first of three series of performances in Mexico in celebration of African contributions to the Mexican culture.

The MFACM receives accreditation by the American Association of Museums and becomes the first and only Latino museum accredited in the nation.

The Museum celebrates its 10th anniversary by presenting La Reina de las Americas featuring artwork from the Museo de la Basilica of La Virgen de Guadalupe.

The Museum organizes the Chicago-Mexico Puentes conference. Approximately 60 people from Mexico from different artistic disciplines attend a three-day conference with their colleagues from Chicago.

The Museum creates the Yollocalli Youth Museum.

Lalo Guerrero, the legendary musician, performs at the Museum.

The Museum purchases and renovates a building at 1401 W. 18th in the heart of the Pilsen community, to house its two youth initiatives Radio Arte and the Yollocalli Youth Museum.

Julieta Venegas, Ely Guerra, and Aurora y la Academia make their Chicago premiere at the Museum's Sor Juana Festival.

The Museum presents the world premiere of Corpus, a documentary film based on the life of Selena, the acclaimed Mexican singer, by Lourdes Portillo. The Museum co-commissioned the film.

Ana Castillo presents the world premiere of her novel, Peel My Love Like An Onion , at the Museum.

The Museum collaborates with the Chicago International Film Festival to present a Mexican cinema series. Santitos and Sexo , Pudor y Lágrimas, are among the films at the Festival.

La Patria Portátil , a collaborative exhibition organized with el Museo Soumaya of Mexico , travels to Los Angeles , San Francisco , and Mexico City. The exhibition showcases romantic imagery in Mexican chrome art calendars.

The Museum secures its first significant donation of artwork from pre-Cuauhtémoc (Pre-1519 C.E.) and Colonial Mexico to its permanent collection.

The Museum hosts the landmark exhibition, The Magic of Remedios Varo, the first U.S. retrospective of this great artist.

As part of the World Music Festival and the Sor Juana Festival, the Museum co-presents singer Lila Downs in her Chicago premiere.

The Museum collaborates with the Chicago International Film Festival to present a Mexican cinema series. Amores Perros sweeps all of the major awards at the Festival.

The Museum co-sponsors the presentation of the legendary play Zoot Suit , by Luis Valdez at the Goodman Theater.

On April 27, the Museum inaugurates its new building. The Museum's space triples from 15,000 to 48,000 sq. ft. The new expansion creates new galleries, a classroom, office space, storage space, and gift shop.     

The Museum also unveils its new permanent exhibition Mexicanidad: Our Past Is Present , the only permanent exhibition anywhere that documents Mexican culture from ancient times to the present and includes the Mexican cultural experience in the U.S.

The Museum serves as the official reception site for the visit of President Vicente Fox. After a reception Fox gives a speech outside the Museum in Harrison Park.

The Museum presents the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Harrison Park . The performance marks the symphony's first outdoor concert in a Chicago neighborhood.

The Museum presents Senorita Extraviada , a documentary film by Lourdes Portillo based on the missing and murdered women of Ciudad Juarez , Mexico . The Museum helped fund the film, which would receive   an Ariel award, the Mexican equivalent of an academy award.

Sandra Cisneros reads from her new novel, Caramelo , in a world premiere at the Museum.

The Museum presents the Chicago premiere of the Salma Hayek film, Frida , with the Chicago International Film Festival.

Chicago is swept up in Fridamania as the Museum presents its most successful exhibition ever, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and 20th Century Mexican Art: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection. 118,000 people visit the MFACM for the exhibition, making it the most popular art exhibition in Chicago in 2003.

The Museum's Radio Arte is awarded the  "Coming Up Taller Award" at a White House ceremony for being one of the nation's best youth art programs. The award is sponsored by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The MFACM inaugurates the new Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater in Millennium Park with two sold-out performances by Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles , the nation's first all-women mariachi band.

Worth Magazine names the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum as one of the nation's 100 leading charities.

The British magazine Museum Practice writes a lengthy, very positive review of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

The Museum presents the critically acclaimed exhibition, Risking the Abstract: Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso.

The Museum's Chicago Día del Niño Family Festival , now in its 8th year, moves to the U.I.C. Pavilion and draws over 10,000 people.

The MFACM presents Treasures of Veracruz: Magia de la risa y el juego . The exhibition features a four-ton Olmec Head, the most important object to ever be featured at the MFACM.

The Ballet Folklórico de la Universidad de Xalapa, Veracruz makes their Chicago premiere, presented by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum , at the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater.

The Museum presents the Chicago premiere of A Day Without A Mexican. The film had the second highest grossing opening weekend of any film in Mexican history. Almost a decade earlier, the MFACM originally funded the pilot video that was used by the filmmakers to raise funds for the feature film.

Carlos Cortéz - Chicago artist, poet, advocate for workers' rights, and legend passes away. Cortéz donates his collection of artwork, personal papers, etc. to the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum.

Colecciones: Mexican Art from 50 Private Chicago Collections which showcases the incredible art collections found in Chicago, is presented.

The Museum opens its most important exhibiton to date, The African Presence: From Yanga to the Present, is the most
comprehensive project over organized about African contributions to Mexican culture. The project also featured numerous public and educational programs throughout the seven months that the exhibition was on display, including the First Annual Martin Luther King Cesar Luncheon (a collaboration with the DuSable Museum of African American History).

In preparation of their 20th anniversary the Museum changes its name from the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum to the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA). While continuing to remain free to the public, the NMMA continues to be nation's leading and largest Latino arts organization and the only Latino museum accredited by the American Association of Museums.

The Museum presents a year-long celebration for its 20th Anniversary, including a Mariachi Festival, a free Community Festival and a concert in Millennium Park.

Arte Textil Maya - the Museum presents its first exhibition as the National Museum of Mexican Art, Arte Textil Maya: Collections of the Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya.

Women Artists of Modern Mexico: Frida's Contemporaries, opens in June. This exhibition showcases and brings to light the artistic works of nearly 25 women that were producing art since the beginning of the twentieth century. Also opening June is, Nahui Olin: A Woman Beyond Time an exhibition which showcase the artwork of Nahui Olin, a woman of great intellectual and creative capacity. These qualities quickly made her a prominent figure in the course of a Mexico that has headed toward modernism.