by Henry Vermilion, text and art

I first met Marcial Herce, in 1993, long before he opened El Tupinamba, when he was a major donor to a children's NGO in town. He has been a good, generous friend to me ever since. Of course, I'm not the only person who can say this; he is a man with hundreds of friends.

Marcial is a bullfighter. Because of him, my wife, Britt and I visited Spain five different times to learn what Hemingway's big fuss was all about.

I've often been asked, where does the name of Marcial's bar-restaurant, "El Tupinamba," come from? As Marcial explains, this was the name of a famous old bar in Mexico City—a bar where intellectuals, politicians, writers, bullfighters and artists hung out. It was there that the composer Silvestre Revueltas wrote his revolutionary modern scores, with his glass in front of him. The novelist Luis Spota was a regular. A quote from Spota adorns the wall of El Tupi in San Miguel (translated): "El Tupinamba is a place where everyone talks all the time, and no one understands any of it." Being the curious type, I pursued the name further. One source said the Tupinambas were a territorial, aggressive tribe of pre-Hispanic Indians on the southern coast of Columbia. Sounds likely to me.

Eight years ago, when Marcial was planning to open El Tupinamba, I was able to invest in it in a small way, and he asked me to hang paintings of mine there, which I have done ever since. Now, Marcial says it's time for a some more of that

El Tupi's Spanish tapas and main dish Spanish food (the best I've eaten outside of Madrid) will remain a staple, but, to my great pleasure, and hopefully yours, El Tupi will now also include a gallery. New paintings and new fine artists with different and changing work will be on the walls in the coming months. Marcial has installed new lighting and to start with will feature about 20 new paintings of mine throughout the space.

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Henry Vermillion was born in El Paso, and grew up in small towns in Texas and New Mexico. He graduated from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, with degrees in English literature and biology. He studied Social Work in the MSW program at the University of Texas in Austin.

In November of 1992, Henry, his wife Britt Zaist, and five other painters opened the co-op Galeriía Izamal, which, until its closing in January of 2022, was San Miguel's oldest art gallery.

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