Echániz, Guillermo M., 1900–1965

Guillermo M. Echániz (1900–1965) was a bookseller and antiquarian based in Mexico City, and one of Earl Stendahl’s first major suppliers of pre-Hispanic art. Echániz married Juliette (“Julieta”) Latremouille (1905–1985) in Detroit in 1924, and both of their children were born there before the close of the decade.

While Echániz’s own expansive collection of pre-Hispanic objects elicited both admiration and condemnation during his lifetime, today he is best known internationally for the facsimiles of codices (pre- and post-Conquest Mexican manuscripts) that he produced and sold out of his Librería Anticuaria Echániz, starting from its first location at Donceles 12 in Mexico City’s historic center. This address also hosted the first iteration of Echániz’s Museo de Artes Gráficas, which contained a veritable timeline of graphic arts materials, from pre-Hispanic clay seals and stamps, to a colonial-era printing press, to engravings by José Guadalupe Posada. Echániz’s Librería and Museo expanded exponentially after 1941 when he acquired a new property at Mar Arafura 8 in Popotla. Its high blue walls would come to enclose a family home with museum-like galleries and an impressive outdoor display garden. In addition to his business sense and willingness to illicitly export pre-Hispanic objects from Mexico to the United States, it was perhaps Echániz’s command of English and experience in the U.S. that made him so comfortable with this binational partnership.

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