The author, José María Arguedas, discusses the work of the late Alicia Bustamante, recently deceased, explaining that she “came of age as an artist in Lima during the years of [José Carlos] Mariátegui’s influence and the repercussions of the Mexican revolution,” a time when society looked down on anything “Indian.” Bustamante was part of an artistic elite in Lima that was fully conscious of the great “indigenous” contribution to Peruvian culture, and she longed to raise awareness among the larger population about that kind of art, hence the value of her personal collection and her efforts to show it at exhibitions in Lima and Europe. But of even greater importance, according to Arguedas, was her contact with traditional artists, becoming a “living bridge between two cultural worlds” that were unquestionably separate despite existing in the same country. After her death, therefore, it became essential to keep her collection at the state university.

In this article, the distinguished Peruvian writer and anthropologist José María Arguedas (1911–1969) extols the work of Alicia Bustamante, who had recently passed away. In their attempts to find the true “Peruvian art,” painters in the indigenist movement used local motifs in their own work, and began to study and reappraise traditional visual arts. They traveled all over the country, looking for native and mestizo artisans whose names and works of art would soon become familiar to residents of the capital city, Lima. One of the major figures in this movement was the Peruvian painter and teacher Alicia Bustamante, who trained at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, where she studied under José Sabogal (1888 –1956), the founder of the school of indigenist painting. Sabogal had a profound influence on Bustamante’s painting and her interest in traditional art. Bustamante had several important exhibitions of her paintings—in Viña del Mar (1937), Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano de Lima (1944), La Paz (1944), and the Galería Lima (1956). But her greatest contribution was to promote traditional art in towns and cities, a move that led to a whole new understanding of Peruvian visual art. Bustamante worked with Sabogal and a group of indigenist painters at the IAP (Instituto de Arte Peruano) at the Museo Nacional, studying traditional art. She also built the first and one of the most important collections of traditional Peruvian art, which was regularly exhibited at the Peña Pancho Fierro (Lima, 1936–67), a sort of salon for talks and debates on politics, literature, and art, a place that Bustamante actively supported. This venue was frequented by noted artists from the indigenist movement and the Peruvian avant-garde, such as: César Moro (1903–1956), Fernando de Szyszlo (b. 1925), and Jorge Eduardo Eielson (b. 1924), among others. On Bustamante’s death in 1968, at her request, substantial portions of her collection were donated to the Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima) and the Galería Latinoamericana at the Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba. [As complementary reading about this artist see the following articles in the ICAA digital archive: “En la cultura: homenaje a Alicia Bustamante, la madrina del arte popular” by Winston Orillo (doc. no. 1139542); “De arte: la exposición pictórica de Alicia Bustamante” by M.F.F.I. (doc. no. 1139459); and “La exposición de paisajes de Alicia Bustamante” by C. R. (doc. no. 1139476)].