Hugh Ian Macgarvie-Munn

Who is Hugh Ian Macgarvie-Munn?

Hugh Ian Macgarvie-Munn was an artist and curator, and also served as a Guatemalan diplomat.

He may have been born in India in 1919, and was raised in Guatemala. His father was born in Scotland and was a captain in the Seaforth Highlanders. In 1947 he married Carmen Ydígoras Laparra Atala, the daughter of María and General José Miguel Ramón Laparra Samajoa Ydígoras Fuentes.

On 2 March 1958, McGarvie-Munn's father-in-law, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, was made President of Guatemala following the murder of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas. Fuentes was incensed by illegal fishing by Mexicans on Guatemala's Pacific coast, and two Mexican fishing boats were sunk by the Guatemalan Air Force. He challenged the Mexican president to a duel on the border to settle the matter, and decided that Guatemala needed a navy. McGarvie-Munn was at that time an artist and member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, an association of naval architects. Fuentes founded the Guatemalan Navy and made McGarvie-Munn briefly the Commander in Chief of the Navy.

In 1974 McGarvie-Munn acquired the château of Entrecasteaux in Var, south-west France, to house his family, and had it renovated into a museum. It was largely due to his efforts that Entrecasteaux became a popular destination for artists and tourists.