Extensive photographic holdings document Latin American and the Caribbean. In addition to Mexico, all the countries comprising Central and South America are included, as well as over half of the islands of the Caribbean. Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Argentina are the countries most heavily represented in the collections. This geographic region is represent by the range of historical photographic mediums, from daguerreotypes taken by Fredricks & Weeks during an 1851 sojourn in Brazil, including a view of Recife harbor and a portrait of a Black woman holding a light-skinned infant (one of the earliest known photographs of a Black person taken in Brazil), to Lourdes Grobet’s digital prints made from photographs she took between 1980 and 2019 of modern Mexican monuments, statues, and buildings inspired by the country's pre-Hispanic past.
Among the Latin American countries, Mexico is represented by the largest number of collections. These encapsulate the three main focal points of the GRI’s Latin American collections – documentation of pre-Hispanic monuments and sites; views of cities and sites from the nineteenth century to the present; and representations of indigenous peoples. Views of archaeological sites include photographs by Désiré Charnay, Teobert Maler, Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, Ricardo de Robina (including Maya sites in Central America), and Laura Gilpin. Documentation of Mexican antiquities includes the first photographic reproduction of the Codex Peresianus (Paris Codex) and an album devoted to the collections of the industrialist, Auguste Génin. There is particularly strong documentation of two key periods in Mexican history: 1861-1867 (the era known as the French intervention in Mexico), and the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. François Aubert’s photographs of the former period include not only documentation of Emperor Maximilian, his court, and his execution, but also provide early images of Mexico City and Mexican indigenous peoples. The Mexican Revolution is represented in photographs taken by professional photographers such as Hugo Brehme as well as by those taken by amateur photographers such as Grant J. Bobier, a young American visiting relatives in Matamoros during the battle for that city.
The Gilberto Ferrez collection is the Library's largest collection of Brazilian photographs, comprising almost 2,000 photographs from the collection, the grandson of the early Brazilian photographer Marc Ferrez (1843-1923). Over half of the collection is devoted to Marc Ferrez’s work which encompassed a photographic vision of imperial and early modern Brazil, while the remaining images are by other photographers active in Brazil between 1860 and 1940. The senior Ferrez systematically documented the changing face of nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro, and he also spent a significant amount of time photographing the Brazilian states of Bahia; Rio de Janeiro; Minas Gerais; and São Paulo. Other themes present in Ferrez‘s work include rural and agricultural subjects, especially coffee production; railroads, boats, and ships; Brazil’s indigenous peoples; and occupational portraits and street vendors.
Photographs of Peru are particularly strong in documenting pre-Hispanic sites and in portraits of Peruvians. Holdings include several albums and groups of cartes-de-visite by the Courret brothers, Eugenio and Aguiles, and their predecessor, Eugène Maunoury, who documented Lima and its peoples – society women, indigenous peoples, and occupations and trades – in the second half of the nineteenth century. Views of archaeological sites in Peru include those taken by Horacio Ochoa in the 1920s and 1930s, Manuel González Salazar from 1914 to 1970, Martin Chambi from 1930 to1950, and Edward Ranney between 1970 and 2009.
Indigenous peoples are represented in images taken throughout Latin America. While much of the earliest photography of native groups is in the form of formal studio portraits or posed outdoor shots, work by Manuel San Martín, Guido Boggiani, and Grete Stern in the Gran Chaco areas of Argentina and Paraguay; G. Ramognino around the Andean rivers of Peru; and J. Charles Kroehle, George Huebner, and Jean Manzon in the Amazon and other areas of Brazil, documents the inhabitants of these regions in their own environments.
Modern architecture in Latin American is documented in the photographs of Armando Salas Portugal and Paolo Gasparini.
Image: Grete Stern (Argentinian, born Germany, 1904-1999). Mujer toba trabajando en cestería. Colonia Benítez, Chaco / Toba Woman Working on Basketmaking. Colonia Benítez, Chaco. 1964. Gelatin silver print. Getty Research Institute, 2019.R.36.