The Museo Camilo Egas, on Venezuela Street near the Plaza Grande, is dedicated to one of Ecuador's most significant 20th-century artists. Camilo Egas (1889–1962) was a painter who moved between Quito, Rome, Paris, and New York over the course of his career, absorbing the influences of European Modernism while maintaining a strong engagement with Andean indigenous culture and landscape. His work is a fascinating record of that tension.
The museum occupies a colonial house with a pleasant central courtyard and displays around 40 paintings from different periods of Egas's career — from the early indigenist figurative work through the Surrealist-influenced paintings he made after contact with European and American avant-garde movements. For visitors interested in Latin American Modernism, this is an essential stop; for others, the museum gives a vivid picture of the intellectual world of 20th-century Quito. Entry is free or very cheap.