Rafael Tovar y de Teresa

Rafael Tovar y de Teresa CEM (April 6, 1954 – December 10, 2016) was a Mexican diplomat, lawyer, scholar and historian.

He was head of Cultural Relations of the Ministry of Finance, from 1974 to 1976,[2] and subsequently advisor to the director general of National Institute of Fine Arts, from 1976 to 1978.

Subsequently, from 1990 to 1991, he served as Coordinator of International Affairs of the same council, and then became general director of the National Institute of Fine Arts, from 1991 to 1992.

Likewise, it was integrated into the cultural sector National Cineteca, to which resources were allocated to protect its collections and expand and renovate its facilities.

With the purpose of providing the country with a new national museum that concentrated the folk art, a trust was created for the development of the project to which, in collaboration with the Government of Mexico City, it was assigned a space in the Historic Center of Mexico City, currently the headquarters of Museum of Popular Art.

[15] In parallel to his responsibility as president of Conaculta, he was executive secretary of the Year 2000 Program Committee: "From the 20th Century to the Third Millennium",[16] celebration of the arrival of this emblematic date that was the reason in Mexico for a vast number of projects and activities.

[18] On September 2, 2015, the president Enrique Peña Nieto proposed, in his Third Government Report, the creation of the Secretariat of Culture.

His remains rest in the family crypt of the French Cemetery of San Joaquín in Mexico city next to his grandfather Guillermo de Teresa, his father Rafael Tovar Villa-Gordoa and his brother Guillermo Tovar de Teresa, who was a chronicler in Mexico City.

For his part, President Peña spoke of the human quality, professionalism and friendship he had with the deceased and placed him on the "altar of the greats" as José Vasconcelos and Jaime Torres Bodet.