GRACIELA ITURBIDE (Mexican, 1942)

Graciela Iturbide

Ojos para volar (Self-portrait), Coyoacán, México

1991

Silver gelatin print

16 x 20” / 40.6 x 50.8 cm

67 x 57 cm (frame)

USD 6,000 + shipping or VAT

Graciela Iturbide

Mujer Ángel, Desierto de Sonora, México

1979

Silver gelatin print

16 x 20” / 40.6 x 50.8 cm

67 x 57 cm (frame)

USD 6,000 + shipping or VAT

Graciela Iturbide

El señor de los pájaros, Nayarit, México

1991

Silver gelatin print

16 x 20” / 40.6 x 50.8 cm

67 x 57 cm (frame)

USD 6,000 + shipping or VAT

Graciela Iturbide

Nuestra señora de las iguanas, Juchitán, México

1979

Silver gelatin print

16 x 20” / 40.6 x 50.8 cm

67 x 57 cm (frame)

USD 6,000 + shipping or VAT

Graciela Iturbide

(México,

1942)

Born in Mexico City, Graciela Iturbide studied filmmaking at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos between 1969 and 1972. She worked as an assistant to photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo, who stimulated her interest in photography. She met Henri Cartier-Bresson while traveling in Europe, and in 1978, she was one of the founding members of the Mexican Council of Photography. Besides Cartier-Bresson and Alvarez Bravo, Tina Modotti was an important influence on Iturbide.

Over the next two decades, Iturbide was invited to work in Cuba, East Germany, India, Madagascar, Hungary, Paris, and the United States. She has held numerous solo exhibitions at venues such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the MAPFRE Foundation in Madrid, the Photography Museum Winterthur, the Barbican Art Gallery, and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain in Paris.

Iturbide's exquisite high-contrast black-and-white prints convey the starkness of life for many of her subjects. Traveling through Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, and the Mexican community of East Los Angeles, Iturbide documents the uneasy cohabitation of ancient cultural rituals and contemporary adaptations and interpretations. One of her particular interests has been the role of women. Since 1979 she has photographed the Zapotec Indians of Juchitán, Oaxaca, among whom women are commonly accorded places of power, and stereotypical gender roles are frequently subverted. Iturbide uses photography to try to understand Mexico in its totality as a combination of indigenous practices, imported and assimilated Catholic religious practices, and foreign economic trade.

Iturbide received the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Foundation Award in 1987, the Grand Prize Mois de la Photo, Paris in 1988, a Guggenheim Fellowship for the project Fiesta y Muerte in 1988, the Hugo Erfurth Award in 1989, the International Grand Prize in Japan in 1990, the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie Award in 1991, the Hasselblad Award in 2008, the National Prize of Sciences and Arts in Mexico City in 2008, an Honorary Degree in photography from Columbia College in Chicago in 2008, and an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2009.

The artist currently lives and works in Mexico City.

Awards

W. Eugene Smith Memorial Foundation Price

Grand Prize Moms de la Photo, Paris

Guggenheim Fellowship for ‘Fiesta y Muerte’

Hugo Erfurt Award, Leverkusen

International Grand Prize, Hokkaido

Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles

Hasselblad Foundation prize, Gotemburgo

Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes, Ciudad de México

Doctor Honoris Causa in Photography by the Columbia College, Chicago

Doctor Honoris Causa in Arts by the San Francisco Art Institute

Premio PhotoEspaña Baume & Mercier, Madrid

Collections

Bert Hartkamp Collection, Amsterdam

Bibliothèque National de Paris

Casa de las Américas, La Habana

Casa de la Cultura de Juchitán, México

Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona

Franco Fontana Collection, Milán

Consejo Mexicano de Fotografía, Ciudad de México

Fototeca de Cuba, La Habana

Musée National D’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

Riverside Museum of Photography, California

The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

University of Parma, Italia

Colección Gelman, Ciudad de México

The J. Paul Getty Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid

Essex Collection of Art from Latin America, Colchester

Fondazione MAST