Wonderful and intelligent woman who arrived in Mexico in 1939 and was captivated by the people and the different cultural expressions of the country, becoming one of the most representative collectors of Mexican popular art.
Who has not experienced a sense of reunion with the bohemian and intellectual Mexico when walking through the rooms of the Casa Azul in Coyoacán? It is irresistible, when walking through the gardens, to imagine Frida and Diego talking with Trotsky, tasting the Mexican delicacies prepared there in advance, and then arriving at the after-dinner (food of the spirit) that sometimes lasted until late at night.
Through their personal belongings -which mostly reflect the taste for pre-Hispanic and popular Mexican art- one can recreate the daily and intellectual life of these artists who, with other characters of their time, would rescue, without intending to, objects of different materials and times, hobbies and conviction that made them not only magnificent collectors, but also pioneers in the revaluation of Mexican popular art.
A moment that has passed is irretrievable, but by rescuing spaces and objects atmospheres can meet and create sensations of "stopped time." Some personalities have dedicated themselves to this task, capturing an almost extinct era in today's world, living with a constant update. This is the case of a wonderful and intelligent woman who arrived in Mexico in 1939 and, captivated by the people, landscapes, plants, animals and by the different cultural expressions, decided to stay in our country. Ruth Lechuga was born in the city of Vienna. At the age of 18 he experienced firsthand the terror and anguish of the German occupation in Austria, and before the war broke out he emigrated with his family, arriving in Mexico through Laredo.
Through taste, hearing and sight she experiences the new world that opened up in front of her: “when I was standing in front of the Orozco mural in Bellas Artes, with those yellows and reds dancing in front of my eyes, I understood that Mexico was another something and that it could not be measured with European standards ”, he would affirm years later. One of his most vehement wishes was to know the Mexican coasts, since the tropics had only seen it in photographs. That young woman was enthralled when she had before her eyes the spectacle of the palm trees: the beautiful plants made her silence for a few minutes, awakening within her the firm decision not to return to her native land. Ruth comments that when she revalidated her studies (with the purpose of entering UNAM) the post-revolution was palpable in the air: the people's contentment for freedom and for the infinity of works that were done for the people. In this climate of general optimism, he enrolled in a career in Medicine, which ended years later as a Doctor, Surgeon and Midwife.
Ruth's father, a lover of the different archaeological manifestations, went out every weekend to various sites in the company of his daughter; After several visits to important areas, she began to observe the people who lived in the region, taking an interest in their customs, language, magical-religious thinking and clothing, among other things. Thus, he finds in ethnographic research a way that satisfies his need to live, his own experience that will rescue the best of the ethnic groups.
As he traveled, he acquired different types of objects for the sole pleasure of having a detail of the place he was visiting. Ruth remembers the first piece: a duckling made of burnished ceramic acquired in Ocotlán, with which she begins her collection. Likewise, with great joy, she mentions her first two blouses that she bought in Cuetzalan “[…] when there were still no roads and it was done, from Zacapoaxtla, like five hours on horseback”. On his own initiative, he began to study and read everything related to indigenous cultures: he investigated the techniques and uses of each piece (ceramic, wood, brass, textiles, lacquers or any other material), as well as the beliefs of the artisans, which allowed Ruth to systematize her collection.
The prestige of Dr. Lechuga as an expert in everything related to popular culture surpassed the national scope in the 1970s, so official institutions such as the National Cooperative Development Bank, the National Fund for the Promotion of Handicrafts and the National Indigenous Institute constantly requested his advice. The National Museum of Popular Arts and Industries, for example, had their valuable collaboration for 17 years.
As a necessity derived from ethnography, Ruth developed her sensitivity as a photographer, managing to collect approximately 20,000 negatives in her photo library to date. These images, mostly in black and white, are in themselves a treasure trove of information that have led them to occupy a relevant level in the Society of Authors of Photographic Work (SAOF). It is not an exaggeration to affirm that the vast majority of works published on Mexican popular art have photographs of his authorship.
His bibliographic work is made up of countless articles published both in Mexico and the United States and in some European countries. As far as his books are concerned, equally widely distributed, The Costume of the Indigenous People of Mexico has become an obligatory work of consultation. Its house-museum invites us to share each of its neatly packed spaces with furniture, lacquers, masks, dolls, paintings, ceramic objects and a myriad of pieces of Mexican folk art, among which it is worth mentioning more than 2,000 textiles , approximately 1,500 dance masks and innumerable objects of the most varied materials.
A sample of his love for everything Mexican is the space in his house dedicated to the most diverse representations of death: polychrome sets of clay skulls from Metepec compete with smiling cardboard figures that seem to mock the feigned seriousness of the rumberos skeletons or the corresponding masks. The classification of such an immense and important collection has represented a titanic effort that seems to have no end, since every time Ruth goes out to visit her artisan friends, she returns with new pieces for which not only the corresponding file must be made, but also also find them a space to exhibit them.
Many years ago, Dr. Lechuga obtained Mexican nationality, and as such she thinks and lives. Thanks to his generosity, a large part of his collections have been exhibited in the most diverse countries of the world, and, something extremely important, they are sources of information available to any researcher who wishes to consult them. Ruth Lechuga, a loved and loved by those who know her, including the indigenous communities with whom she maintains a close relationship, is today a point of unity between a modern Mexico and one that carries in its essence the magical, mythical and religious world that forms the other side of the Mexican.
