The Mexican artist Francisco Toledo has donated the IAGO (Oaxaca Institute of Graphic Arts) and all its contents to the INBA (National Institute of Fine Arts) in Mexico City, Proceso reports.
According to Monopol, Toledo has made the donation because he could no longer pay the taxes associated with running the art institution.
The IAGO, founded by Toledo in 1988, boasts an exhibition space, a cinema, and a library. It holds a collection of 124,000 artworks, 80,000 photographs, and 22,000 books.
The collection features engravings by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Antonio Saura, and Francisco de Goya. Also included are works by Asger Jorn and Christian Dotremont from the art group CoBrA—a forerunner of Situationism—whom Toledo discovered while living in Paris in the early 60s. The photography selection comprises works by Edward Weston, Graciela Iturbide, Josef Koudelka, and Nacho López, among others.
The collection also gathers a large number of works by Toledo himself, one of the most renowned artists in Mexico, where he is known as “El Maestro” (the master.) The 74-year-old artist was the subject of a retrospective at London’s Whitechapel Gallery in 2000.
Meanwhile, the INBA has declared that the 42 staff that the IAGO currently employs to run the institution will keep their jobs.