A family legacy in art.

• Author: Dean, Loral
• Position: Ecuadorean artist Oswaldo Guayasamin and the Guayasamin Foundation

THE GUAYASAMIN FOUNDATION PROTECTS A NATIONAL PATRIMONY FOR THE PEOPLE OF ECUADOR

It is the birthright of every quiteno to reach out and touch a mountain. In the Ecuadorean city of Quito, squeezed 17 kilometers along a narrow valley high in the Sierra between two parallel ranges of the Andes, a mountain vista is never far away. But some views are better than others and halfway up a mountain in an exclusive area of Quito appropriately called Bellavista, lies land with a view that vies with some of the most expensive real estate in the world. This is the place Oswaldo Guayasamin, the world-famous painter, muralist and sculptor whose name is inseparable from modern art in Ecuador, has chosen to live and work. But this 5600-meter estate is not the private retreat of a hugely successful artist whose work can command as much as a million dollars. It is, instead, the home of Fundacion Guayasamin and its sister organization Taller Guayasamin S.A. It includes a museum containing Guayasamin's lifetime collection of pre-Columbian archaeological artifacts and Spanish colonial religious art, a gallery exhibiting works by Guayasamin and other contemporary artists, a jewelry shop specializing in pre-Columbian and folk-art designs, an art library, and a collection of workshops and ateliers with a staff of 70-plus carpenters, artisans, art restorers, artists and support staff working together to preserve and extend South American traditional and contemporary art forms.

Everything - the land, the buildings, the art collections and, indeed, Guayasamin's family home and studio - belong to the people of Ecuador. But the day-to-day operations of the Foundation are shouldered almost entirely by the gregarious artist's extended family, a sprawling, diverse and energetic group of individuals similar in character to the city of Quito, Ecuador's capital and the Guayasamin family's hometown.

Sixteen years ago, Oswaldo Guayasamin, then in his late fifties, called a family conference. Some important decisions were pending. At the top of the agenda were his personal collections of pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial art which he had accumulated over almost half a century. His interest in his indigenous ancestors had been sparked at the age of 10 when his father, a carpenter, brought home some pre-Hispanic vases he had unearthed while working on a construction project in the provincial town of Latacunga. By the time Guayasamin was in his twenties and his career as an artist was beginning to take off, he had developed a serious interest in the symbols and motifs used by the pre-Columbian peoples of South America. He travelled restlessly around South America, sketching the hard lives of the Indians, blacks and poor as he went, and adding to his personal collection of pre-Hispanic artifacts. By the mid-seventies when this family conference was held...