Vincenta Flores-Ataucusi

Peru

Portable Altarpieces or Shrines, Retablos

Vincenta and her husband Claudio, represent the world-famous Quispe family of Peru, widely known for their Peruvian retablos, or portable shrines. Such shrines have been traditionally used by Quechua-speaking indígenas to bring fecundity to their agricultural fields and to ask for the intervention of a Catholic saint or deity to give intervention for a successful crop. The Quispes have made their mark in part by introducing contemporary themes and representing scenes of Andean life that encompass religion, customs, tales and legends and social life. The Quispes left Ayacucho, the town famous for this type of work, in the 1989 when the political situation created difficulties there. They have resided in Lima ever since.