Photographing The Mexican Revolution

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).

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.

"This exhibition of one hundred and fifty prints has been selected from the many thousands of negatives which form the Casasola Archive. Its title, 'Tierra y Libertad', takes up the rallying call for 'Land and Liberty' which expressed the aspirations of the Mexican Revolution--excerpt from the foreword

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).

Photography and Memory in Mexico traces the life stories of some of the famous photographic images made during the 1910 revolution, which have been repeatedly reproduced across a range of media in its aftermath. Which photographs have become icons of the revolution and why these particular images and not others? What is the relationship between photography and memory of the conflict? How do we construct a critical framework for addressing the issues raised by iconic photographs? Placing an emphasis on the life, afterlife and also the pre-life of those iconic photographs that haunt the post-revolutionary landscape, Andrea Noble approaches them as dynamic objects, where their rhetorical power is derived from a combination of their visual eloquence and their ability to coordinate patterns of identification with the memory of the revolution as a foundational event in Mexican history. Richly-illustrated, this book will be of interest to all those interested in photography, memory studies, and Mexican cultural history.

The 427 glass-plate and film negatives of the Osuna Collection, photographs from the Mexican Revolution, are now preserved in the Special Collections & Archives Department of the Tomâas Rivera Library at the University of California, Riverside. This volume reproduces the whole collection, highlights a number of the most striking images and provides essays that illuminate and place the photos in context.

Published by the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College in association with Getty Publications This richly illustrated exhibition catalogue features photographs by three Mexican women, each representing a different generation, who have explored and stretched notions of Mexican identity in works that range from the documentary to the poetic. Revolution and Ritual looks first at the images of Sara Castrejón (1888–1962), the woman photographer who most thoroughly captured the Mexican Revolution. The work of photographic luminary Graciela Iturbide (born 1942) sheds light on Mexico’s indigenous cultures. Finally, the self-portraits of Tatiana Parcero (born 1967) splice images of her body with cosmological maps and Aztec codices, echoing Mexico’s layered and contested history. By bringing their work into conversation, Revolution and Ritual invites readers to consider how Mexican photography has been transformed over the past century.

“100 pages of text and 184 historical news photographs . . . This is the Mexican Revolution in its drama, its complexity, its incompleteness.” —Bertram D. Wolfe The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 with the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Díaz. The Wind That Swept Mexico, originally published in 1943, was the first book to present a broad account of that revolution in its several different phases. In concise but moving words and in memorable photographs, this classic sweeps the reader along from the false peace and plenty of the Díaz era through the doomed administration of Madero, the chaotic years of Villa and Zapata, Carranza and Obregón, to the peaceful social revolution of Cárdenas and Mexico’s entry into World War II. The photographs were assembled from many sources by George R. Leighton with the assistance of Anita Brenner and others. Many of the prints were cleaned and rephotographed by the distinguished photographer Walker Evans. “Here is the history of the revolution in 184 of the best photographs of the time. The whole disintegration and painful reintegration of a society is marvelously set before the eyes.” —Times Literary Supplement “A classic and sympathetic statement of the first of the great twentieth century revolutions—its words and pictures command our attention and our respect.” —Military History “One could not have seen it more closely and fully had one taken part in it.” —Bertram D. Wolfe