Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2022
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.
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) |