The neighborhood artist, Artist quarter in historic center of Puebla, Mexico

The Barrio del Artista is an artist neighborhood in the historic center of Puebla organized around a central plaza with around 40 studios. Painters, sculptors, and craftspeople work here, creating and selling their art directly from their workshops to visitors.

In 1940, José and Ángel Márquez Figueroa, teachers at the Antigua Academia de Bellas Artes, gave an open-air painting class at the Parián and proposed the site for young artists. Students secured an interview with Governor Gonzalo Bautista Castillo, and with the consent of municipal president Juan Manuel Treviño, the Unión de Artes Plásticas de Puebla was founded, holding its first collective exhibition on 5 May 1941. In 1951 the Casa del Torno was restored and granted to the group, and in 1955 Governor Rafael Ávila Camacho gave custody of the Plaza del Torno to the Union.

The neighborhood brings together painters and sculptors who work openly in their studios, allowing visitors to watch creative processes unfold throughout the day. This shared space reinforces a tradition of artistic community where techniques and ideas flow naturally between studios.

The neighborhood is easy to explore on foot and most studios are open during the day, making visits straightforward. Weekends tend to be livelier, with more artists present and galleries more actively showing work.

The Casa del Torno, a 17th-century building on 8 Norte 414, once housed a sheep slaughterhouse and later textile workshops. Its patio was destroyed in 1994 to build a bridge linking the neighborhood to the Convention Center, and the building was demolished in 2012 for a cable car tower.