Guillermo Tovar de Teresa

Guillermo Tovar y de Teresa (August 23, 1956 – November 10, 2013) was a Mexican historian and art collector (mainly of painting, literature and ancient books, and deeply knowledgeable about photography), bibliographer, philanthropist, cultural promoter, and scholar. He was a constant defender of historical and artistic Mexican heritage, mainly of his hometown in Mexico City, for which he was a formally appointed chronicler, an office originally appointed by the President of Mexico and from which he resigned to propose the creation of the Council of the Chronicle of the City of Mexico. He was a specialist in New Spain/Mexican colonial period art, history and literature. He published several books about colonial Mexican art and collaborated with the newspaper La Jornada, among others.

Tovar y de Teresa stood out for his precocious intelligence: he learned to read long before entering school, and at age 13 he served as a colonial art advisor to Mexican 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, a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, and an honorary member of the Hispanic Society of America in New York City. He was considered a candidate for the Aesthetic Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), but never wanted to hold a public office or receive a salary. One of his brothers, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, served from 2012 as head of the National Council for Culture and the Arts and as the first Secretary of Culture. In December 2018, his house became part of the Soumaya Museum.

Early years

Genealogy Portrait of Guillermo Tovar de Teresa in his childhood, in the museum Guillermo Tovar de Teresa House (Valladolid 52, Colonia Roma, Mexico City). Tovar de Teresa was interested in investigating all the branches of his ancestry and traced his lineage back through some of the largest and oldest families in New Spain. In 2012, he submitted a request to succeed in the title of count of Gustarredondo, which was litigated in Spain asking rights of possession. Upon Tovar de Teresa's death, his nephew, Rafael Tovar y López-Portillo, son of Rafael Tovar y Teresa, director of Conaculta and grandson of President José López Portillo, requested the subrogation of the rights of his uncle in that title, because he is the firstborn. Guillermo Tovar de Teresa was a great-grandson of Margarita López-Portillo y Rojas, who was in turn the sister of the lawyer, novelist, poet, playwright, journalist, language scholar and governor of the State of Jalisco José López Portillo y Rojas. Tovar de Teresa was also the maternal nephew of the writer José Bernardo Couto and the maternal great-great-grandson of the writer José Joaquín Pesado.

Topics addressed in his works

Tovar de Teresa primarily wrote about the art, culture and history of Mexico, especially during the Baroque period and the Viceregal era. He wrote about Mudéjar architecture and carpentry in New Spain, the organs and altarpieces of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City, the historic center of Mexico City, and

Gerónimo de Balbás Miguel Cabrera

Photographer's, he was a deep connoisseur of the works by Julio Michaud, Désiré Charnay and Alfred Briquet 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 . 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 Art works in his house museum Casa Guillermo Tovar de Teresa (Valladolid 52, Colonia Roma, Cuauhtémoc City Hall, Mexico City ).

He had, within his vast collection of books, "first editions of (works of) Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz", and also "the founding book of 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 opened in Facebook a group that made a proactive space where he continuously difussed his musical, artistic, historical interests.

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 Museum facade of the Guillermo Tovar de Teresa House. (Valladolid 52, Colonia Roma, Cuauhtémoc City Hall, Mexico City).

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. 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.