Fernando Gamboa

Museographer, diplomatic and cultural promoter Fernando Gamboa was never able to organize the exhibition for the 9th Pan-American Conference that was to be celebrated in Bogotá, Colombia in 1948 due to the social unrest know and as the "Bogotazo". The Museum Diego Rivera has reconstructed this same exhibition for the first time since Gamboa's attempt sixty-one years ago as part of the centennial homage for who is considered the father of museum studies in Mexico. This anecdote made Fernando Gamboa (b. México, 1909-1990) a national hero after he saved the close to 100 works by Mexican painters like Diego Rivera, Joaquin Clausell, José Velasco, and Chávez Morado, among other representative examples of Mexican art from the 17th through the 20th centuries that were kept in Bogota's Communications Palace, the exhibition site that was burned down during the riot. Important reference on the mid-20th century Mexican political and culture context and their artistic corporative trajectory, in particular those artist groups with clear nationalist and communist affiliations, like LEAR, the Misiones Culturales, Sociedad de Arte Moderno and many more.