Fundación Guayasamín and Capilla del Hombre

Fundación Guayasamín and Capilla del Hombre Review

Ecuador's most famous contemporary artist, Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919-99), held court at a workshop and beautiful museum in the residential neighborhood of Bellavista, befriending everyone from the Rockefellers to Fidel Castro during his long career. On display in three buildings here are pre-Columbian ceramics, colonial sculptures, and paintings from his private collection, as well as a permanent exhibit of his own paintings. Original works by Guayasamín, as well as prints, posters, and T-shirts, are sold in the gift shop. Five blocks up the hill is the starkly modern vision the artist never lived to see completed: a secular chapel of art dedicated to the history of mankind, housing a collection of his cubist works on the theme of social injustice in Latin American history. Take a guided tour in English or Spanish. It's included in your ticket price, and will prove invaluable for understanding what you're seeing. An expansion of the Capilla site is underway at this writing, with plans to house the entire collection at that site upon its completion.