History of the Museum
Creating a museum dedicated to Galician culture had been a long-standing desire. The first achievement in this sense was the creation of the Seminar of Galician Studies. which in 1930 managed to secure an exhibition room in Fonesca College in Santiago de Compostela to exhibit its archaeological, anthropological and contemporary art collections. However, following the military coup, the Francoist forces banned its activity and dismantled the exhibition. Part of this legacy would later be recovered by the Padre Sarmiento Institute of Galician Studies.
The Museum of the Galician People was founded in 1976, following the death of the dictator and during the transition to democracy. Created as an association, its objectives were to research, conserve, disseminate, defend and promote Galician culture in all its aspects, and specifically to create a museum at the service of these interests.
The spirit of the Seminar of Galician Studies remains present in many senses - from the actual material legacy of part of its collections to participation in the Museum's activities by former members of the institution such as Xaquín Lorenzo or Antonio Fraguas, the first chair of the Board of Trustees and Museum director respectively.
The first exhibition rooms in the former convent of San Domingos de Bonaval opened to the public in October 1977. Santiago de Compostela City Council granted the museum the right to occupy this magnificent heritage site, which, since the disappropriation, had been used for a number of purposes. Indeed, for just over a decade, it had housed the Municipal Museum.
The collection began with exhibits that occupied the first three rooms open to the public: Pottery, Textiles and Basketry. The objects on display were principally contributions from the founding patrons. In this sense, the Pottery room was enriched by the magnificent ceramic collection of Luciano García Alén and María García Ayaso, made up of pieces from Galicia's various pottery villages. The Textiles room housed contributions made by Ramón Villares Paz, Cipriano Jiménez Casas, and Melisa Fernández Puentes, along with several items recovered from the former Seminar of Galician Studies. The rest of the exhibits, especially those displayed in the Basketry room, were purchased from various artisans from across Galicia, as part of a task commissioned to several members of the Museum's Board of Trustees.
Over the years, the autonomous government (Xunta de Galicia), recognising that the Museum of the Galician People is the spearhead for the network of anthropological museums in Galicia, officially recognised it, through Decree 111/1993 of 22nd May, thereby authorising it to act as the central hub for all museums and public and private collections integrated into the Galician museum system and dedicated to the study, promotion, and dissemination of Galicia's historical and anthropological heritage. 2012 saw further official recognition for the Museum from the autonomous government, when its library was declared of special interest for Galicia.
From the perspective of cultural anthropology, the Museum of the Galician People is the first museum in Galicia that attempts to encompass and relate various human manifestations within a particular community, collecting, conserving, and studying samples of its spiritual and material culture in order to use this knowledge to contribute to the planning of the collective future.