Central American Photography and Film
Contents
The texts and images below highlight the materials exhibited in Case 2.
John Edward Heaton: Guatemala
Foreword by Didier Kahn-Sriber
Guatemala: Catherine Doctor Ediciones, 2015
Among the items on display in Case 2, a catalogue of the exhibition, “John Edward Heaton: Guatemala.” The exhibition débuted at the Maison Européene de la Photographie in Paris on 9 September and ran through 31 October 2015. The Latin American Library was the first U.S. venue to début the exhibition John Edward Heaton’s Guatemala on 18 March 2016. Three of Heaton’s photographs from the show were included in The Latin American Library’s Central America exhibition, and can be seen here.
Alfredo A. Massi Collection
Alfredo Massi (1899-1981) was a pioneering and prolific filmmaker in the early years of film and cinema in El Salvador. Massi created more than 55 films between 1932 and 1966.
Massi produced documentaries used for political propaganda for several Salvadorian presidents such as Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, Oscar Osorio, and José María Lemus. He also founded his own company, Lorotone, which produced the newsreels shown in movie theatres.
In 2005, the family of Alfredo Massi donated his films to The Latin American Library, along with a number of photographs and other materials documenting his life and work. With the consent of the family, the films are now housed in the vault of the American Film Institute (AFI) al the Library of Congress. Massi’s surviving 35mm films were recently digitized, although due to extensive deterioration of the original reel-to-reel film, only an hour and six minutes of footage were captured. The more extensive collection of 16mm film is at the AFI awaiting digitization. On display, this DVD features clips from around twenty of his short films, including a short film of aerial views of San Salvador and surrounding towns
Anónimo
6a Avenida de la Ciudad de Guatemala
Ciudad de Guatemala, 1954
Fototeca de CIRMA Archivo de fotografías de
El Imparcial
This layered image of Sixth Avenue shown above, as much a social symbol as vehicular artery in downtown Guatemala City, is now a pedestrian thoroughfare. By the 1960s, Sexta Avenida offered the latest styles in fashion and technology. Strolling and window-shopping on Sixth Avenue became so popular an activity for families on Sunday afternoons that it became known as “a sextear” – “to go sixthing”-. The Capitol Cinema was one on the first movie houses to show current films in Guatemala City. Beachhead, starring Tony Curtis, came out in 1954.
Sanfred Robinson
Portrait of a Maya Woman Holding a Water Jar
Guatemala, 1882-1888
Albumen print
Sanfred Robinson was a traveler and photographer whose stunning photographs documented the people, places, and landscapes of late nineteenth-century highland Guatemala.
Celeste González Rivas (León, Nicaragua 1954)
La Conquista
Nicaragua, 1989
Celeste González Rivas (León, Nicaragua 1954)
Casa de Monimbó de Abajo
Nicaragua, 1985
Two silver gelatin print photographs by Nicaraguan photographer Celeste González Rivas, c. 1980s regarded as one of the country’s leading photographers. Her work spans an array of photographic languages and genres, including artistic, experimental and documentary photography.
Gift of Forrest D. Colburn
Tomás Zanotti (1868-1958)Photograph of Maya K’iche’ Woman of Quetzaltenango with Adornments and Shawl
Quetzaltenango, 1898-1950
Fototeca de CIRMA Archivo de fotografías de Tomás Zanotti
This image represents a style of portraiture that reflects the upward mobility of indigenous society in the early twentieth-century Quetzaltenango. The family of the traditionally dressed young woman would have paid Zanotti to take her portrait; he was engaged not in an ethnographic but a commercial project. His work, however, did cast Zanotti in the role of cultural interpreter. Indians, then as now, often went barefoot. In this instance, perhaps to amend social status, Zanotti chose to hide unshod feet by placing the prop of a wooden dog in front of them.