Graciela Iturbide facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Graciela Iturbide
Graciela Iturbide in 2007.
Born	Graciela Iturbide May 16, 1942 Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality	Mexican
Education	Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Known for	Photography
Awards	Hasselblad Award 2008.

Graciela Iturbide (born May 16, 1942) is a famous Mexican photographer. Her amazing photos have been shown all over the world. You can find her work in many big museums, like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Her Life Story
Her Photography Journey
Awards She Has Won
Exhibitions of Her Work
Where Her Work is Kept
Images for kids
See also

Her Life Story

Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1942. She grew up in a big family with twelve younger brothers and sisters. Her parents were traditional Catholics. She went to Catholic school and learned about photography early on. Her father loved taking pictures of his children, and Graciela got her first camera when she was 11 years old. She remembers her father keeping all their photos in a box. She said it was "a great treat to go to the box and look at these photos, these memories."

In 1962, she married an architect named Manuel Rocha Díaz. They had three children. Sadly, her daughter Claudia passed away when she was six years old in 1970. This sad event led Graciela to focus on photography.

Her Photography Journey

After her daughter's death in 1970, Graciela Iturbide decided to study photography. She went to the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She first wanted to be a film director, but she soon realized how much she loved photography.

She learned from Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who was a teacher and a famous photographer. He became her mentor. Graciela traveled with him in 1970 and 1971. She learned from him that "there is always time for the pictures you want." In 1971, she received the W. Eugene Smith Grant and a scholarship from Guggenheim College.

Her Style and Inspirations

Graciela Iturbide mostly takes pictures of everyday life. She usually works in black-and-white. She follows her curiosity and photographs what she finds interesting. She was inspired by other great photographers like Josef Koudelka, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastiao Salgado, and her mentor, Manuel Álvarez Bravo.

She likes to connect with the people she photographs. This helps her create powerful and meaningful portraits. She became very interested in the daily lives of Mexico's native cultures, like the Zapotec, Mixtec, and Seri people. She has photographed life in Mexico City, Juchitán, Oaxaca, and along the Mexican-American border.

Her photos often explore themes like identity, festivals, traditions, daily routines, and the roles of women. Her work shows how cultures are always changing. She also shows the differences between city life and country life, or traditional ways and modern life. Graciela uses photography to understand her own culture in Mexico. She combines old traditions, Catholic customs, and modern influences in her pictures.

The "Angel Woman" Photo

In 1978, Graciela was asked to photograph the Seri Indians. They are a group of fishermen who live in the Sonoran Desert near the Arizona/Mexico border. She spent about a month and a half with them. During this time, she took her famous photo called "Mujer Ángel" (Angel Woman).

This picture shows a Seri woman on a trip to a cave with ancient paintings. The woman "looked as if she could fly off into the desert." She was carrying a tape recorder she had traded for handicrafts. The band Rage Against the Machine even used "Mujer Ángel" for their song "Vietnow" in 1997.

The Juchitán Series

In 1979, a painter named Francisco Toledo asked Graciela to photograph the Juchitán people. They are part of the Zapotec culture in Oaxaca, Mexico. This community is special because women traditionally have a lot of power in business and politics. The women run the market, and men are usually not allowed in, except for gay men, who are called "muxes" in the Zapotec language.

This experience really changed Graciela's views on life. She focused on the role of women in Mexico through her photos. She worked on this series for almost 10 years, until 1988. This collection of photos became a book called Juchitán de las Mujeres.

One of her most famous photos from this series is "Nuestra Señora de Las Iguanas" (Our Lady of the Iguanas). It shows a woman with iguanas on her head. This image became so popular that there's even a statue of this woman in Juchitán! People have compared this photo to La Virgen de Guadalupe, showing an indigenous woman as a symbol of strength. This image reminds us of the challenges faced by native communities in Mexico.

Graciela also photographed "Magnolia" in Juchitán. This photo shows a nonbinary person looking at themselves in a mirror while wearing a dress.

Graciela's way of taking pictures was special. She didn't just take photos from a distance. She took the time to get to know the women personally. She earned their trust, and they allowed her to photograph their private celebrations. Her work in Juchitán helped Mexicans appreciate their native communities more.

You can see more pictures from her "Juchitan de Las Mujeres" series on her website.

Other Photo Projects

Graciela Iturbide has also photographed Mexican-Americans in Eastside Los Angeles. She worked on a book called A Day in the Life of America (1987). She has also taken photos in Argentina (in 1996), India (where she took her well-known photo, "Perros Perdidos" or "Lost Dogs"), and the United States (in Texas).

A big part of her work is about understanding what "Mexico" truly means. She shows that it's a mix of different histories and traditions. She is also a founding member of the Mexican Council of Photography. She still lives and works in Coyoacán, Mexico.

In 2008, she won the Hasselblad Award, which is a very important photography award. The Hasselblad Foundation said she is one of the most important photographers from Latin America in the last forty years. They said her photos are very strong and beautiful. They also mentioned that she inspires many young photographers.

Some of Graciela's recent work shows refugees and migrants. Her work "Refugiados" (2015) shows the contrast between love and danger. One photo shows a smiling mother holding her child in front of a mural of Mexico with safe and dangerous areas marked.

The largest collection of her photos in the United States is kept at the Wittliff collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX.

Awards She Has Won

1987: W. Eugene Smith Grant from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund
1988: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
1990: International Grand Prize, Hokkaido, Japan
1991: Award Recontres Photographiques, Arles, France
1998: First prize, Mois de la Photo, France
2008: Hasselblad Foundation Photography Award
2021: Outstanding Contribution to Photography, Sony World Photography Awards
2022: Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum

Exhibitions of Her Work

1980: Graciela Iturbide, New Mexico
1990: External Encounters, Internal Imaginings: The Photographs of Graciela Iturbide, at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, CA
1991: Rencontres d'Arles Festival, Arles, France
1997–1998: Images of Spirit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
2003: Pajaros et Paisajes (Birds and Sights), Robert Miller Gallery, New York City
2003: Pajaros et Paisajes, OMG Gallery for Contemporary Art, Düsseldorf, Germany
2007–2008: The Goat's Dance: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, LA
2008: Torrijos: The Man and the Myth, Americas Society, New York
2011: Rencontres d'Arles Festival, Arles, France
2011: Retrospective, Pinacoteca, São Paulo, Brazil
2015: Naturatta | Baño de Frida, Helinä Rautavaara Museum, Espoo, Finland
2016: Graciela Iturbide: A Lens to See, Ruiz-Healy Art, San Antonio, TX, for Fotoseptiembre USA
2017: Revolution and Ritual: The Photographs of Sara Castrejon, Graciela Iturbide, and Tatiana Parcero, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, Claremont, CA
2019: "Graciela Iturbide's Mexico", Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA
2019: "Graciela Iturbide's Mexico", Minneapolis Museum of Art, Minneapolis MN
2020: "Graciela Iturbide's Mexico", National Museum of Women in the Arts

Where Her Work is Kept

Graciela Iturbide's photos are part of the permanent collections in these places:

Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Wittliff collections, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Images for kids

Nuestra Señora de Las Iguanas