Books

[Above: Frederick Catherwood's engraving "Uxmal, Casa de las Palomas" from John Lloyd Sephen's 1843 book "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan."]

LINKS TO SECTION PAGES

We are happy to begin listing books and booklets for sale. The purchase of books through us will help the Mayan artists. Some of these books are hard to find or available only through Arte Maya Tz'utuhil. If this proves successful, we hope to be adding other books in the future.

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Trouble Dolls, a Guatemalan Legend
by Susanne Simon
illustrated by Diego Isaias Hernandez Mendez
Scholastic 2000

This children's book is 65 pages long and is illustrated with 35 paintings by Diego Isaias Hernandez Mendez. The first half tells a story about the trouble dolls, and the rest of the book is facts about the Maya and Guatemala. A tiny bag made of handwoven Maya cloth contains about six of the even tinier trouble dolls.

Abajo del Volcan
The Mayan Artists of San Pedro la Laguna.
by Benjamin D. Paul, Stanford University
& Joseph Johnston
1994
Krasl Art Center
32 pages, paperback
1 tipped on color reproduction &
12 black and white photos (of artists) and drawings.
This booklet was published to accompany an exhibition of paintings exhibited in three Michigan Museums in 1995.
[This booklet is available only through Arte Maya Tz'utuhil.]

This booklet with parallel texts in Spanish and English, tells the story of how oil painting came into being among the Tz'utuhil Mayans. It contains brief biographies of eight of these artists—Rafael Gonzalez y Gonzalez, Pedro Rafael Gonzalez Chavajay, Mariano & Matias Gonzalez Chavajay, Antonio Ixtamer, Lorenzo Gonzalez Chavajay and Victor Vasquez Temó.

Evolution in textile design from the highlands of Guatemala
Seventeen male tzutes, or headdresses, from Chichicastenango in the collections of the Lowie Museum of Anthropology.
by Margot Blum Schevill
Lowie Museum of Anthropology
University of California, Berkeley
1985
79 pages, paperback
97 black and white photos and drawings.
[Amazon lists this book as hard to find, they don't have it. Buy it here and you help the artists.]

Taking one traditional woven item, the male tzute, from one community, Chichicastenango, Margo Blum Schevill touches on all aspects recent Mayan culture in Guatemala. She explains how changes in the Mayan world and the world around them affect evolutionary changes in the symbolic images woven into their textiles.

Antionio Coché Ixtamer
Indigenous Artist from Highland Guatemala
by Joseph Johnston
Bear Bytes Publishing
1994
16 pages
4 tipped-in photographs, 3 B&W illustrations
Hand-sewn in an edition of sixty

Arte Maya Tz'utuhil published a series of six booklets to promote some of the best Tz'utuhil artists. The hand sewing and tipped-in photographs of the paintings while beautiful, made the production of these booklets time-consuming. No more than sixty copies were made of this particular booklet, the only one with enough copies remaining to offer for sale. This booklet accompanied an exhibition of Antonio Ixtamer's paintings in Mill Valley in 1995.

LINKS TO SECTION PAGES

To contact us write: Arte Maya Tz'utuhil, P.O. Box 40391, San Francisco, CA 94140. If you need to talk to me directly, email me with your telephone number and I will return the call. I am currently moving my office. Email me at .