Anthology of Colombia

A collection to discover, preserve, and pass on the best of the country

Since 1973, Villegas Editores has showcased and narrated, in high-quality illustrated books, the Colombia that deserves to be seen, documented, and remembered.

Anthology of Colombia is the most ambitious and necessary editorial decision the publishing house has made in this new phase: to bring together, in a single collection, re-editions of the best illustrated books it has published over 53 years on the most diverse themes of Colombian culture.

Over more than half a century, Villegas Editores has created nearly 300 large-format books dedicated to art, architecture, nature, archeology, anthropology, crafts, cuisine, history, regions, and many other fundamental expressions of the country. Today, a good part of this work is scattered in libraries, collectors' homes, used bookstores, or private archives, making it difficult to consult as a whole.

This collection was born to correct that: to bring together for the first time, in a homogeneous, practical, and collectible format, an essential part of Colombia's editorial and cultural memory.

The three titles for May bring together three distinct perspectives on the country's richness: its nature, its art, and its celebrations.

Birds in Colombia. Volume 1 is the result of five photographic expeditions by photographer Murray Cooper through the country's main natural regions, organized with the support of prominent Colombian and international biologists. This first volume presents a selection of the most representative species from the Andean region, the Amazon, the Llanos, the Magdalena, and the Chocó. The second volume, with a different selection of species, will appear in next year's collection.

Pedro Ruiz. Paintings brings together four decades of work by one of the most unique Colombian painters of today. Throughout his career, Pedro Ruiz has built a very personal visual language that combines narrative clarity with a powerful symbolic charge. In his paintings, the Colombian territory appears again and again as both setting and protagonist: rivers, mountains, jungles, and towns become the backdrop for human stories that speak of natural wealth, displacement, violence, and hope. The book's texts were written by poet and writer William Ospina. Pedro Ruiz's work has traveled through museums and exhibitions in America, Europe, and Asia.

Festivities. Celebrations and Rites of Colombia is an anthropological and visual document about the country's festive universe. Its pages explore the Barranquilla Carnival, the Congo and Cumbia dances, Holy Week in Popayán and Mompox, the San Pacho celebrations in Quibdó, the Andean carnivals of Pasto, the equestrian festivals of San Martín in the Llanos, the indigenous rituals of the Amazon, and many other celebrations that reveal how Colombia formed its identity from the encounter of three great cultural roots: indigenous, African, and European. The texts are by anthropologist Nina S. de Friedemann. The photography is by Jeremy Horner.

These three books are part of the Anthology of Colombia Collection, which publishes three new titles each month with the aim of bringing together, in a homogeneous, practical, and collectible format, the best of over fifty years of illustrated publishing by Villegas Editores on Colombian culture.

The illustrated books by Villegas Editores constitute one of the most extensive, positive, and unique graphic documents on Colombian culture of the last fifty years. This collection will allow them to be brought together, consulted as a whole, and preserved as a living memory of the country.

Older generations know something about these topics; their children know less, and their grandchildren, in many cases, practically nothing. But everyone deserves to approach the most valuable aspects of Colombia to understand, care for, defend, and transmit them.

That's why Anthology of Colombia is not conceived as a series of loose books, but as a collection worth starting from the beginning and completing month by month.

It is a library to create, preserve, and pass on. A concrete way to leave children and grandchildren a printed, beautiful, and lasting testimony of the best of Colombia.