Guerrero was staying with his friends Tim and Gail Kohl at their home on Lake Mendota. He's in Madison for a new exhibit of his photographs that opens Tuesday.

On Friday, he was crediting his genes -- and an occasional martini -- for his long life. After all, who really knows? When someone asked William Saroyan to what he attributed his longevity, the writer replied, "Not dying."

Guerrero, who may be as engaged and engaging as any 91-year-old ever, said both his parents lived into their 90s.

So, he said, he can't really complain about his genes. But he gave an impish grin and said, well, maybe he had one small issue.

"I've always felt I was a 6-foot-tall blond trapped in a little brown body," Guerrero said. Then he laughed, which he does often.

Guerrero's buoyant mood may have come from his being in Madison, a city he loves, as well as the anticipation of much of his extended family joining him here for a belated birthday celebration and the new exhibit.

Those relatives won't just be attending the exhibit -- which opens Tuesday at the Promega BioPharmaceutical Technology Center, with a reception from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. -- several of them are artists who will be exhibiting themselves.

Guerrero is best known, especially in Wisconsin, for his photographs of Frank Lloyd Wright, but the new exhibit is titled "Beyond Frank Lloyd Wright" and will include Guerrero photographs of New York City and two other iconic artists with whom he had close association, Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson.

It might also be called "Beyond Pedro" because the exhibit also will feature carved wooden masks by Guerrero's nephew, award-winning artist Zarco Guerrero; jewelry by Zarco's wife, Carmen De Novais Guerrero; and works by Pedro's son, Ben, grandsons Alexander and Antonio, and granddaughter Hannah. Finally, Pedro's grandnephew, jazz artist Quetzal Guerrero, will perform during the reception.

Pedro Guerrero is delighted by his family's immersion in art, while insisting of himself: "I never claimed to be an artist."

Others would disagree. Guerrero had hoped to take art classes when after high school he left the dusty streets of small-town Arizona for the Art Center School of Los Angeles.

When he arrived, Guerrero was told the art classes were filled.

"What else do you teach?"

"Photography."

"Good," the 20-year-old Guerrero said. "Then I'll take photography."

It was two years later when a tenuous family connection with Frank Lloyd Wright -- Guerrero's father had once painted a sign for the architect -- led the aspiring photographer to contact Wright at Taliesin West. To Guerrero's astonishment, he was hired as a photographer, and later invited into the Taliesin Fellowship in time to make the trip east to Wisconsin in the spring.

On Monday, Guerrero will take his extended family out to Spring Green for a tour of the Taliesin property the photographer first encountered nearly 70 years ago.

Guerrero's photos of Wright were collected in the 1994 book "Picturing Wright" and 60 of them are on permanent display at Monona Terrace. The shots are remarkably candid, which Guerrero attributes to the close friendship that grew between them. Wright was comfortable around him. "I was part of the furniture," the photographer said.

He would grow close, too, with the sculptors Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson, and the relationships enhanced Guerrero's photographs.

Jean Lipman, founding editor of Art in America, took note: "Guerrero has a very warm and living relationship with the artists he photographs ... . He doesn't just go and take official-looking photographs. He's with the artists, he understands them, and he's right at the heart of what their work is all about."

Guerrero was retired when, in the early 1990s, a Wright scholar named Dixie Legler urged him to pursue a book of photographs of the architect; around the same time, Gail Kohl helped arrange an exhibition of the Wright photos at the Wisconsin Academy in Madison.

It helped reawaken interest in Guerrero, and no doubt contributes to his warm feeling for Madison. "It's my favorite town," he said.

Not long ago he was in a store here buying film, and paid with a credit card.

"You're the Wright photographer!" the clerk said.

Recalling the moment, Guerrero smiled. "How can you not love a city where that happens?"

How can you not love someone who retains such passion for life, even at 91? About Guerrero's only complaint Friday was the one about looking in the mirror and being reminded that he's still not 6 feet tall and blond.

"I guess I'm not Doris Day's brother after all," he said.

Contact Doug Moe at 608-252-6446 or dmoe@madison.com.