Related links:

Artspace.com with more biographic information and a gallery of images

New York Times article on the history of the home of Arturo García Bustos and Rina Lazo.

On Guatemala in Spanish and English Mayaparadise.com.

Information on Guatemala, 1944-1954 from globalexchange.org:
"From 1944-1954, Guatemalan society enjoyed what is now referred to as the 'Ten Years of Spring' with two popularly elected and reformist Presidents. President Arbenz, himself a former military officer, permitted free expression, legalized unions and diverse political parties, and initiated basic socio-economic reforms. One key program was a moderate land reform effort aimed at alleviating the suffering of the rural poor. Pursuant to this plan, only plantations of very high acreage were affected; and only in cases where a certain percentage of such acreage was in fact lying unused. In these extreme cases, the unused portions of the land were not expropriated, but simply purchased by the Guatemalan government at the same value declared on the owner's tax forms. The property was then resold at low rates to peasant cooperatives. To set an example, President Arbenz started with his own lands.

Unfortunately for the people of Guatemala, the United Fruit Company was, at that time, one of the largest landowners in the country. Moreover, the 'Frutera' had greatly undervalued the value of its holdings on its tax returns to the Guatemalan government. The executives were thus highly displeased when their fallow lands were forcibly bought back by the government at the price they themselves had declared. In 1954, at the height of the McCarthy era, the Company leaders hurried to Washington and cried "Communism." The results were swift and predictable. The CIA promptly organized a group of Guatemalan military dissidents, trained, armed and funded them, and helped them to plan and carry out a violent coup d'etat against the legally and popularly elected Arbenz. Arbenz himself was driven out of Guatemala and died heartbroken in exile. A blood bath ensued, peasant cooperatives were destroyed, unions and political parties crushed, and dissidents hunted down. Thousands were killed and many more fled the country. Recently released CIA documents include a CIA hit list prepared before the coup, identifying political and intellectual leaders as military targets. A military dictatorship was installed in the presidency and remained there until the 1986 election of civilian President Venizio Cerezo. A horrified young physician known as Che fled the country with the others, and moved to Cuba to help Fidel fight what he had seen for himself of 'yankee imperialism'."