Toward a History of Women's Photography

This paper will present a brief overview of women’s photography in Mexico during the twentieth century. During the first decades, some women established photography studios in order to make a living, both in Mexico City and provincial capitals. The post -Revolutionary years, during which Mexico experienced a search for national identity, were permeated by important figures who visited the country: Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, Sergei Eisenstein, Paul Strand who had a profound influence on the photography scene. In the early thirties, Aurora Eugenia Latapí and Lola Alvarez Bravo opened the way for other women to gradually position themselves as photographers, both documentary and artistic. Finally, in the seventies, during a “boom” of photography, women assumed  the  prominent positions that  they have maintained  to this date. The important participation of women, often invisible, can pave the way towards a new history of Mexican photography.