Guayasamin Museum

First I want to say that the delay in posting is yet again a combination of being busy and nothing new and TOO interesting happening. During our first year, everything was new. Everything was a challenge. This year, we have settled into our lives a bit more and we have been able to find some consistency in navigating our way around challenges. There are still times where we nearly pull out our hair in frustration, but we have largely been able to acclimate to the ups and downs of living in Quito.

That being said, there are still routine things that have kept us busy and preventing us from writing many posts. The October-March time frame is always a little rough for us since Shannon coaches swimming 5 days a week and I do the same with the basketball team. (Her team is doing great again and my boys have finished the regular season with a record of 8-6 and one last tournament coming up)

Soon our time will be freed up as those commitments will be ending and we will be moving on to other tasks and adventures.  Fear not, anyone who reads this blog with any semblance of regularity, we will be having a plethora of posts coming very soon. For one, Shannon's sister Meagan is here right now and we just wrapped up a trip to Otavalo. We will be spending some time with her the rest of this week in Papallachta and the Amazon, with stories to come. I will be going to Trinidad and Tobago with my basketball team for an end of season tournament in a few weeks, and I will also be going to Lima, Peru in mid-April. This all takes places as our wedding date rapidly approaches like a train and we have planning and coordination to take place along with it to match, just for good measure. Anyway, on to some of the stuff we have been doing in the meantime.

A Painting from his Age of Anger Collection

Ever since we arrived in Quito, we were told what a wonderful place it was and what wonderful culture it had. The highlight of the culture we were told, is the famous museum of Guayasamin, Ecuador's national treasure, and most famous artist. While we have heard wonderful things about the museum, and the location is no more than an 11 minute car ride, we had never made it there before this past week. Whether we had car trouble, they were closed for a holiday, or we were hiding under our volcano shelter (dining room table) for fear of impending doom, we just never could find our way into the museum.

The Temple of Man

Well, that has changed, and the place is incredible. A brief background on the man, Oswaldo Guayasamin is that he grew up the son of an indigenous and mestizo (mixed indigenous/Spanish decent) young man in an impoverished household. His father was employed as a carpenter. When Oswaldo was a young child, his father brought home a piece of pottery that he found along the road in Ecuador that turned out to be a pre-Columbian artifact (probable Incan). This sparked a great interest in Guayasamin in pre-Columbian culture, art, and society. This interest turned into a personal and professional focus on human beings. 

As a young artist, he focused his painting and sculpture work on human forms, specifically stages of emotion such as rage or anguish. He spent his life painting, sculpting, and portraying his infatuation with people through his art. His primary influence, which can clearly be seen in his art style, was Pablo Picasso. When he was close to the end of his life, he donated his Ecuadorian mansion as a museum and commissioned a separate art gallery on his property that would, when finished, be known as the Temple of Man. 

Casa de Guayasamin

We arrived at around 10am and took the tour of his home first. The house is an incredible mansion overlooking the city of Quito with work-spaces, libraries, pools, and smaller galleries. It is also home to one of the largest collections of pre-Columbian artifacts in Ecuador. There is ancient pottery, weapons, figures, and countless other artifacts displayed throughout the house, and being the history nerd that I am, I loved every second of it. Along the tour of the house, we learned quite a lot about Guayasamin and his life from a great and knowledgeable tour guide named Amanda. 

A Painting from His Age
of Tenderness Period

When we left the house, we walked over to the Temple of Man and perused his art collection, which was awe-inspiring to say the least. He had collections that focused on the black experience of slaves and former slaves throughout South America and the world. He also had collections that centered on anger, indigenous South Americans, and another focused on tenderness. Many of the paintings were more than 10 feet by 16 feet wide and the expression he was able to capture on his canvas was incredible. 

It may have taken us a long time to get there, but the Guayasamin Museum is certainly worth checking out for anyone who appreciates art.