Graciela Iturbide Mexico, 1942

"I think that any photographer is an investigator. Photography is a pretext to know the world, to know life. To know yourself."

-Graciela Iturbide

 

Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942 and still lives and works there. She studied filmmaking at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos where she met and apprenticed with legendary photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who inspired her to pursue photography. Her haunting imagery of the indigenous populations of Mexico gained international recognition for their stark yet elegant composition and emotional resonance, cementing her status as one of Latin America's celebrated photographers.

Iturbide has received numerous international awards, including the W. Eugene Smith prize for photography in 1987, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1988, and the Hasselblad Award in 2008. Her work has been featured in more than sixty gallery and museum exhibitions worldwide, including the permanent collections at the Musée National d'Arte Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The J. Paul Getty Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.