Guillermo Tovar y de Teresa
# Guillermo Tovar y de Teresa

Guillermo Tovar de Teresa (Mexico City, August 23, 1956 – idem, November 10, 2013) was a Mexican historian and an art collector (mainly of painting, literature and ancient books, deeply knowledgeable about the work of the great photographers in Mexico), bibliographer, philanthropist, cultural promoter, and scholar. He was a constant defender of the historical and artistic Mexican heritage, mainly from his hometown, of which he was chronicler, an appointment that was originally in charge of the Presidency and to which he resigned to propose the creation of the Council of the Chronicle of the City of Mexico. He was a specialist in the New Spain/Mexican colonial period art, history and literature. He published several books about Colonial Mexican art and collaborated, among others, for the newspaper La Jornada. He stood out for his early intelligence: he learned to read long before entering school, and at age 13 he was advisor to colonial art of the then president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz. At 23, he published his first book, Renaissance painting and sculpture in Mexico. He was a member of the Historical Center Executive Committee, corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, in Madrid, and honorary member of the Hispanic Society of America, the latter based in New York City. He was considered a candidate for the Aesthetic Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, but never wanted to hold a public office or receive any salary. One of his brothers, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, was since 2012 the head of National Council for Culture and the Arts and first secretary of Culture. His house became, in December 2018, a museum, and is part of the Soumaya Museum.

## Early years

He learned to appreciate history and art books from a very young age, thanks to his grandfather, Guillermo de Teresa y Teresa, and his father, Dr. Rafael Tovar y Villa Gordoa, his "guardian figures". He said, that his grandfather had taught him to read in the pages of the newspaper... Self-taught by choice (I decided to train on my own (...) I was bored), lived away from universities. At the age of seven he received, from then President Adolfo López Mateos, "a medal in recognition of his dedication to the study of Mexican history and art." At age 11 he was invited by the historian Jorge Gurría Lacroix to collaborate in the National Institute of Anthropology and History. At age 12 he was appointed advisor to President Díaz Ordaz in matters of colonial art. At 14, he had already given his first lectures at the Institute of Aesthetic Research of the UNAM, and at a very young age he received a distinction from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. At 16 he concluded his formal investigation into the history of Tacubaya, years later published as Historical news of the Miguel Hidalgo Delegation.

### Genealogy

He was interested in investigating all the branches of his ancestry, passing through some of the largest and oldest families in the New Spain. In 2012, he submitted a request to succeed in the title of count of Gustarredondo, which litigated in Spain asking rights of possession. On the death of Guillermo Tovar, his nephew, Rafael Tovar y López-Portillo, son of Rafael Tovar y Teresa, director of Conaculta and grandson of the president José López-Portillo, requested the subrogation of the rights of his uncle in that title, because he is the firstborn. Guillermo Tovar was a great-grandson of Margarita López-Portillo y Rojas, in turn the sister of the lawyer, governor of the state of Jalisco, novelist, poet, playwright, journalist and language scholar José López Portillo y Rojas. Guillermo Tovar was also the maternal nephew of the writer José Bernardo Couto and maternal great-great-grandson of the writer José Joaquín Pesado.

   « There is no sacred art (...) where there has been a liberal reform»

## Topics addressed in his works

   His teachers were authors of the canonical works of our history and literature I knew by heart Lucas Alamán, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, Carlos María de Bustamante, Joaquín García Icazbalceta, Herrera, Juana Inés de la Cruz), Vicente Riva Palacio and he could recite them at once.

He wrote, among others, about the following topics:

* Baroque art
* Art of Mexico
* Culture of Mexico
* Viceregal art
* Architecture and carpentry Mudejar in the New Spain
* Gerónimo de Balbás
* Miguel Cabrera
* Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City (organs and altarpieces)
* Historic Center of Mexico City
* Photographer's, he was a deep connoisseur of the works by Julio Michaud, Désiré Charnay and Alfred Briquet
* History of Mexico
* Luis Lagarto
* New Spanish nuns
* Viceroyalty of New Spain utopia

## The Council of the Chronicle of Mexico City

Constituted before a notary and registered in the Tax Administration Service, this organization received on August 14, 2007 authorization from the Directorate of Legal Affairs of National Institute of Fine Arts to start their functions. Chaired from 2012 to date by Román Sánchez Fernández.

### Chronicle Council Publications

The publisher Editorial Trama, of Madrid, is formally the publisher of the Chronicle Council of Mexico City. Some of his publications are the following:

* In 2007, he published, together with the Secretariat of Education of the Federal District, the book Ciudad de México: Crónica de sus delegaciones (Mexico City: Chronicle of its delegations). It includes a presentation by Guillermo Tovar de Teresa and, at the end, an article by Carlos Monsiváis, one of the council members, along with Jesús Ramírez Cuevas. The climax is from Salvador Flores.
* In 2009, he published Ciudad de México: Crónica de sus delegaciones (Censorship and revolution: Books prohibited by the Inquisition of Mexico: 1790–1819), by the authorship of Guillermo Tovar de Teresa and the doctor in history and specialist in nineteenth-century Mexico Cristina Gómez Álvarez. This is an edition by the Windward collection.

## Collecting and other interests

* He had, within his vast collection of books, "first editions of (works of) Sr. Juana Inés de la Cruz", and also "the founding book of the Mexico City", an incunable: the treaty of architecture of Leon Battista Alberti (the edition of 1512, of Paris), with annotations by the Viceroy himself Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco.
* He worked as an advisor, before 1983, of Juan José Bremer in the Undersecretariat of Culture, after having also worked with Pedro Ramírez Vázquez.
* He headed, next to the restaurateur Lucía Ruanova Abedrop, the citizen group "El Caballito, Conservación", a restoration plan, which he defended, for the damages suffered during his restoration, of the Equestrian statue of Charles IV of Spain in Mexico city knowns as El Caballito, by Manuel Tolsá. .
* He opened in Facebook a group that made a proactive space where he continuously difussed his musical, artistic, historical interests.
* He was an advisor, since its inception, on the project for the foundation of Casa Lamm.
* He gave a keynote speech on the occasion of the LXXXV anniversary of the foundation of the Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library.

   «We Mexicans (...) have a bad habit of devouring ourselves, of destroying ourselves after the conquest.»

## Other acknowledgments

* Citizen Merit Medal, awarded by the Assembly of Representatives of the Federal District.
* Commander's Cross of the Royal Order of Saints Mauritius and Lazarus, of Royal House of Savoy (2007).

### Post Mortem

* A tribute to him was held in the Auditorium "Jaime Torres Bodet", of the National Museum of Anthropology, conducted by the Mexican government on February 13, 2014, and headed by Emilio Chuayffet Chemor, Secretary of Public Education.
* His brothers decided to create the Guillermo Tovar de Teresa Award, which will recognize, every two years, the trajectory of a Mexican whose work seeks to preserve the heritage of Mexico.
* On August 6, 2014 a tribute was held in his memory at the Museum of Mexico City. The event, which included the inauguration of the bookstore number 24th of the Economic Culture Fund, which will bear its name in its memory, was held in the Museum of Mexico City, and was organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Federal District Government. Among others were: the president of the National Council for Culture and the Arts, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, the director of the Economic Culture Fund, José Carreño Carlón, the writer Homero Aridjis.
* On December 20, 2018, it was announced that the home of Guillermo Tovar de Teresa would be the Guillermo Tovar de Teresa House in the street Valladolid 52, Colonia Roma Norte), a cultural site where the Soumaya Museum is located, sponsored by the Slim Foundation.
