Three decades after its foundation the National Photo Library is published the first large catalog of its collection. The volumeprovides an overview of the art of photography in Mexico and showcases one of the most important Latin American collections,irreplaceable testimony of more than 130 years of social history, political, cultural, artistic, scientific and economic life. Includes brief descriptions and large samples of funds Fototecamost interesting: the Mexican past and their indigenous heritage,the pioneer photographers of the nineteenth century, theCasasola collection, the photographs of Guillermo Kahlo's colonial architecture, records of Modotti, Brehme, Lopez andmany more. This book, bound in cloth and with the title stampedin gold letters, is a useful compendium to several researchers, as well as an endless source of delight for lovers of photography.

"Now this publication is available in English as Mexican Suite. Olivier Debroise and Stella de Sa Rego have revised this edition to include more current material and explanatory notes for an audience less familiar with Mexican history. They have also eliminated some of the general history of photography and added more of the early history of photography in Mexico, as well as many new, previously unpublished images. The book is organized both chronologically and thematically, which allows viewer/readers to follow the evolution of major photographic genres and styles. Debroise also examines the role of photography in the development of modern Mexico and the influence of prominent foreign photographers such as Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920 is among the world’s most visually documented revolutions. Coinciding with the birth of filmmaking and the increased mobility offered by the reflex camera, it received extraordinary coverage by photographers and cineastes—commercial and amateur, national and international. Many images of the Revolution remain iconic to this day—Francisco Villa galloping toward the camera; Villa lolling in the presidential chair next to Emiliano Zapata; and Zapata standing stolidly in charro raiment with a carbine in one hand and the other hand on a sword, to mention only a few. But the identities of those who created the thousands of extant images of the Mexican Revolution, and what their purposes were, remain a huge puzzle because photographers constantly plagiarized each other’s images. In this pathfinding book, acclaimed photography historian John Mraz carries out a monumental analysis of photographs produced during the Mexican Revolution, focusing primarily on those made by Mexicans, in order to discover who took the images and why, to what ends, with what intentions, and for whom. He explores how photographers expressed their commitments visually, what aesthetic strategies they employed, and which identifications and identities they forged. Mraz demonstrates that, contrary to the myth that Agustín Víctor Casasola was “the photographer of the Revolution,” there were many who covered the long civil war, including women. He shows that specific photographers can even be linked to the contending forces and reveals a pattern of commitment that has been little commented upon in previous studies (and completely unexplored in the photography of other revolutions).

Making a vital contribution to the understanding of Latin American modernism, Esther Gabara rethinks the role of photography in the Brazilian and Mexican avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 1930s. During these decades, intellectuals in Mexico and Brazil were deeply engaged with photography. Authors who are now canonical figures in the two countries’ literary traditions looked at modern life through the camera in a variety of ways. Mário de Andrade, known as the “pope” of Brazilian modernism, took and collected hundreds of photographs. Salvador Novo, a major Mexican writer, meditated on the medium’s aesthetic potential as “the prodigal daughter of the fine arts.” Intellectuals acted as tourists and ethnographers, and their images and texts circulated in popular mass media, sharing the page with photographs of the New Woman. In this richly illustrated study, Gabara introduces the concept of a modernist “ethos” to illuminate the intertwining of aesthetic innovation and ethical concerns in the work of leading Brazilian and Mexican literary figures, who were also photographers, art critics, and contributors to illustrated magazines during the 1920s and 1930s. Gabara argues that Brazilian and Mexican modernists deliberately made photography err: they made this privileged medium of modern representation simultaneously wander and work against its apparent perfection. They flouted the conventions of mainstream modernism so that their aesthetics registered an ethical dimension. Their photographic modernism strayed, dragging along the baggage of modernity lived in a postcolonial site. Through their “errant modernism,” avant-garde writers and photographers critiqued the colonial history of Latin America and its twentieth-century formations.

Hugo Brehme created an idyllic vision of Mexico that influenced photography, film, and literature for a hundred years. His beautifully composed, timeless images of lo mexicano—cacti and pyramids, Indian children and marketplaces, colonial buildings and snow-capped volcanoes and peaks—were widely distributed and acclaimed both in Mexico and internationally. Noted critic Olivier Debroise characterized Brehme as "both the first modern photographer of Mexico and the last representative of its old guard and of a certain nineteenth-century vision." Working in Mexico from 1905 until his death in 1954, he was an early mentor to Mexico's most famous photographer, Manuel álvarez Bravo, and a significant influence on Golden Age filmmakers Gabriel Figueroa and Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Brehme-esque imagery even appears in the work of American filmmaker John Ford and Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Timeless Mexico presents an outstanding selection of Hugo Brehme's photographs, ranging from imagery of the Mexican Revolution to scenic landscapes, colonial architecture, and the everyday life of indigenous peoples. Susan Toomey Frost, who has collected Brehme's photography for many years, provides an illuminating introduction to his life and work. She also describes his practice of printing and distributing his photographs as collectible postcards—a practice that, together with publication in countless books, magazines, and tourist brochures, gave Brehme's work the wide circulation that made his images of Mexico iconic. Art historian Stella de Sá Rego authoritatively discusses Brehme's place in the history of Mexican photography, especially within Pictorialism, as she reveals how a man from Eisenach, Germany, came to create an enduring visual mythology of the essence of Mexico.

This book is a skillful synthesis of Mexico's complex and colorful history from pre-Columbian times to the present. Utilizing his many years of research and teaching as well as his personal experience in Mexico, the author incorporates recent archaeological evidence, posits fresh interpretations, and analyzes such current problems as foreign debt, dependency on petroleum exports, and providing education and employment for an expanding population. Combining political events and social history in a smooth narrative, the book describes events, places, and individuals, the daily life of peasants and urban workers, and touches on cultural topics, including architecture, art, literature, and music. As a special feature, each chapter contains excerpts from contemporary letters, books, decrees, or poems, firsthand accounts that lend historical flavor to the discussion of each era. Mexico has an exciting history: several Indian civilizations; the Spanish conquest; three colonial centuries, during which there was a blending of Old World and New World cultures; a decade of wars for independence; the struggle of the young republic; wars with the United States and France; confrontation between the Indian president, Juárez, and the Austrian born emperor, Maximilian; a long dictatorship under Diaz; the Great Revolution that destroyed debt peonage, confiscated Church property, and reduced foreign economic power; and the recent drive to modernize through industrialization. Mexico: A History will be an excellent college-level textbook and good reading for the thousands of Americans who have visited Mexico and those who hope to visit.

Agustín Victor Casasola photographed everyone of consequence in Mexico at the time of the revolution, from Francisco (Pancho) Villa, Emiliano Zapata and the exiled Russian leader Leon Trotsky to artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. For this splendid collection of Casasola's work, the noted American author Pete Hamill has written a rich essay on the photographer and the Mexico he pictured so well.