Exhibitions

September 4, 2004 to January 2, 2005
Lincoln Park, San Francisco
(415) 750-3614

The Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya which was at the National Gallery in Washington DC is now at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It includes over 130 of the most important Maya masterworks from collections in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, the United States and Europe. The San Francisco exhibition will also include four paintings of the present day Maya culture loaned by Arte Maya Tz'utuhil. These include the painting by Pedro Rafael Gonzalez Chavajay shown above.

Ritual Memories: Contemporary Maya Painters

September 10 to October 8, 2004
Reception and Music: Friday, September 10 ($5)
Gallery Hours: Tues—Sat 10am—5pm ($2)
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
2868 Mission Street
San Francisco CA

Jointly by the Mission Cultural Center and The Mexican Museum Ritual Memories showcases thirty paintings by fourteen Tz'utuhil Maya artists. The paintings focus on Maya rituals and healing traditions.

Artists of the Maya Lineage

September 3 to 22, 2004
Reception: Friday September 3, 5:30—7:30
SOMArts Gallery
934 Brannan St.
San Francisco, CA
Gallery Hours: Noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday—Saturday

The image above is of an enormous painting by Guatemala born Carlos Loarca containing imagery drawn from Maya beliefs. Paintings by Tz'utuhil and Kachiquel artists are also in the exhibition. Included are paintings by Mario Gonzalez Chavajay, Matias Gonzalez Chavajay, Mariano Gonzalez Chavajay, Antonio C. Ixtamer and Kachiquel artist Paula Nicho Cumes [painting right], arguably the best self taught female Maya artist living today.

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This section I originally intended, even though I find most resumes dry and uninteresting, to be a listing of the artists and paintings in each of the exhibitions. When I was working on Phoenix-exhibit web-page I started thinking about what happened behind the scenes. Now there was an interesting story. So I will write down the better stories behind the exhibitions.

In 1993 I committed myself to mounting a show at the Krasl Art Center, the first time the paintings would need to be shipped. This was a big step for me and I was very nervous about it. Besides the normal framing which I would do myself (over twenty new paintings), I would need to build the crates for shipping the paintings. But then six weeks before the exhibition was to be shipped, I was called up for jury duty and left with no one to help me.

Running concurrently with the Michigan shows, the exhibition at the San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum featured works by two of the more naive Tz'utuhil artists Lorenzo González Chavajay and Victor Vasquez Temó.

Artes Americas in Fresno California presented the largest and best mounted exhibition of Tz'utuhil Mayan paintings up until this time. Margo Blum Schevill loaned traje [traditional dress] for several Tz'utuhil towns to this exhibit.

The driving force of young Latina woman keeps this small museum in downtown Phoenix in existence . Because I run Arte Maya Tz'utuhil essentially by myself I immediately respected her, but by the time I arrived in Phoenix with Tz'utuhil artist Pedro Rafael in tow for the opening of the show, things had started going wrong. The Director and I were quietly at odds. A few days after Pedro Rafael and I returned to San Francisco, I called. The curator answered saying "Oh weren't you told? During the El Niño storm the roof fell in and city evicted us." The finest paintings of the last five years for several of the best Tz'utuhil artists including Pedro Rafael were there and this was not what I wanted to hear. For the story of what happened enter.

Tz'utuhil Mayan Painters was the largest (100 major paintings) and most important show of contemporary Mayan paintings ever assembled outside of, or possibly even within, Guatemala. The exhibition was drawn from a number of private collections. Most of the important Tz'utuhil artists were represented by numerous examples of their best paintings, many of which had never been shown anywhere before.

Victor Vasquez Temó worked exclusively with Arte Maya Tz'utuhil since he started painting. He is the only Tz'utuhil artist to have visited the United States before having a painting exhibited in Guatemala. He is also the first artist from his village to come to the United States and this exhibition marks his second visit. This show at Hastings College of the Law is a retrospective of many of his best paintings he painted during his time with Arte Maya.

La Galeria at Casa Latina
Merrill College

There have been two exhibitions of Tz'ututhil painting at La Galeria. The first was an overview of the best Tz'utuhil paintings. The second exhibit presented the works of Rafael Gonzalez y Gonzalez together with those his grandson and namesake Pedro Rafael Gonzalez Chavajay.

UNESCO produced a book called "Arte Naif Guatemala" and had a reception for the artists when the book came out. The Reception was hosted by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú and President of France Jacques Chirac. This book opened a door for the artists many of whom had long been struggling without recognition. The book covers not only the Tz'utuhil artists but also the Kaqchikel artists from San Juan Comalapa and Patzicía, and a few artists from other communities. I was fortunate enough to be in Guatemala at the time of the reception. Although this event was not one of Arte Maya Tz'utuhil's it significantly affected many Tz'utuhil artists..

October 15–December 1, 2003

Cup-O-Java
1600 Guerrero St. at 28th St.
San Francisco, CA

Mario Gonzalez Chavajay struggled as an artist for 15 years emerging as the premier painter of tourist art. He renounced that to paint original works exclusively with Arte Maya Tz'utuhil, finding at the same time a unique style of painting with the general theme of "the Mayan in Nature". The painting at the top of this page is one of two major works he has recently done in his emerging style. This exhibition marks the first time that Arte Maya paintings will concurrently be exhibited for sale on the web at the same time as the exhibition runs.

December 1, 2003–February 1, 2004

Cup-O-Java
1600 Guerrero St. at 28th St.
San Francisco, CA

Diego Isaias Hernandez started out working in colored pencils on paper. He graduated to sculpture but finally ended up becoming an oil painter. Wisely he decided to learn on his own with the result that he has developed an original style which still is uniquely Mayan. Among all of the Mayan painters he comes up with some of the most interesting titles for his paintings. He won first prize in Guatemala's most prestigious art competition for a painting entitled "Mitch" about the hurricane which passed through Central America cause much destruction and loss of life.

February 1–April 1, 2004

Cup-O-Java
1600 Guerrero St. at 28th St.
San Francisco, CA

Vicenta Puzul de Gonzalez, the first Tz'utuhil woman to become a painter, learned from her renowned artist husband Mariano Gonzalez Chavajay. She learned quickly and her style of painting is virtually indistinguishable from that of her husband. She has in the past anonymously helped her husband on his larger works, but with the encouragement and backing of her husband now has decided to paint on her own. Vicenta has decided she wants to work exclusively with Arte Maya. This is her first one person exhibition.

Past Cup-O-Java exhibitions are at the bottom of this page.

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To contact us write: Arte Maya Tz'utuhil, P.O. Box 40391, San Francisco, CA 94140. Telephone: (415) 282-7654 Email me at .