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Martin Chambi, Photographer of the Andes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Roderic A. Camp*
Affiliation:
Central College
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Extract

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From 1908 until 1973, unknown to most of his countrymen and to Latin Americanists, a Peruvian photographer with an artist's eye compiled a remarkable visual and artistic record of the Peruvian highlands, a record that is just being brought to light. During these years, Martin Chambi, a professional, creative photographer, took more than sixteen thousand photographs, all of which have been retained by his family. Through the efforts of Edward Ranney and the photographer's oldest son, Victor Chambi, this invaluable resource will soon become available for use by authors, artists, and scholars of Latin America. Ranney, a free-lance photographer and a student of archeology, first became aware of Chambi's work during his field trips to Cuzco, Peru, where he spent many months producing his own work, including a forthcoming photographic document on Inca architecture. As he became more familiar with the elder Chambi's work, Ranney soon realized the early artistic eye of this photographer and the superb documentary record he left behind of people, places, and historical events in Cuzco and its surrounding archeological sites and indigenous cultures.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. Chambi's work has appeared in a half-dozen works by his contemporaries, but the reproduction is of a very inferior quality. For the trained eye, the technical quality of his work can be seen in the reduced reproductions used by Francis Toor, Three Worlds of Peru (New York: Crown Publishers, 1949). His work also appeared in numerous Latin American newspapers, including La Prensa (Buenos Aires), Revista de Revistas (Mexico City), El Mercurio (Santiago), and Variadades (Lima).

2. Although small in number and largely confined to the 1920s and 1930s, before he reached his maturity as an artist, Chambi had the following shows:

12 Oct. 1917 Artistic Center at Arequipa (Arequipa, Peru)
1921 Agricultural, Livestock, Industrial Exposition of Arequipa (Arequipa, Peru).
28 Jul. 1924 Show in the Provincial Council of Cuzco (Cuzco, Peru)
28 Jul. 1925 Council of Puno (Puno, Peru)
30 Dec. 1925 International Artistic Exposition of La Paz, Bolivia (La Paz, Bolivia)
28 Jul. 1927 Hotel Gran Bolivar (Lima, Peru)
28 Jul. 1928 Regional Exposition of Arequipa, by Arequipa Rotary Club (Arequipa, Peru)
15 Aug. 1934 Plastic Arts Competition (Cuzco, Peru)
18 Mar. 1935 Joint Show with the painter Francisco Olazo at Alzedo Salon, of the National Academy of Alzedo Music (Lima, Peru)
13 May 1935 Vargas Brothers Art Studio, the San Agustin Archway (Arequipa, Peru)
1935 Local Alcedo Mining Center (Lima, Peru)
1936 Viña del Mar, Casino Viña del Mar (Santiago, Chile)
21 Mar. 1936 La Nación Bldg. (Santiago, Chile)
13 May 1964 Show with Victor Chambi at the First American Convention of the International Federation of Photographic Art (Mexico City, Mexico)
30 May 1969 “Photographs of Peru” sponsored by the Peruvian Institute of Hispanic Culture and by Peruvian Photo-Cinema Club (Lima, Peru)