Martín Chambi Jiménez (a.k.a Martín Chambi de Coaza, Puno, Peru 1891 – Cuzco, 1973) was photographer, originally from southern Peru, the only major indigenous Latin American photographer of his time.

Recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs, he was a prolific portrait photographer in the towns and countryside of the Peruvian Andes. In 1979, New York's MOMA held a Chambi retrospective, which later travelled to various locations and inspired other international expositions of his work.

Quote

"It is wrong to focus too much on the testimonial value of his photos. They have that, indeed, but, in equal measure they express the milieu in which he lived and they show (...) that when he got behind a camera, he became a giant, a true inventor, a veritable force of invention, a recreator of life."

- Mario Vargas Llosa

Beginnings as a photographer

Martín Chambi was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century. When his father went to work in a Carabaya gold mine on the banks of the River Inambari , Martin went along.

There he had his first contact with photography, learning the rudiments from the photographer of the Santo Domingo Mine near Coaza (owned by the Inca Mining Company of Bradford, Pa). This chance encounter planted the spark that made him seek to support himself as a professional photographer. With that idea in mind, he headed in 1908 to the city of Arequipa, where photography was more developed and where there were established photographers who had taken the time to develop individual photographic styles and impeccable technique.

Chronology

• 1891 - Born in Coaza, Puno (Peru) to an indigenous family.
• 1905 - Father dies. Travels to the banks of the Inambari to work in the gold mines, meets photographers of the Santo Domingo Mining Company.
• 1908 - Apprentice in the photographic studio of Max T. Vargas, in Arequipa.
• 1917 - Opens his first photographic studio in Sicuani , Puno.
• 1920 - Establishes himself in the city of Cusco, photographing in the "painterly" style he learned in Arequipa.
• 1927 - Beginning of his mature photographic style.
• 1950 - Cusco earthquake. End of the "Cusco School". After this, he gradually ceases to work actively as a photographer.
• 1958 - Exposition in his honor on the occasion of 50 years of his career as a photographer.
• 1964 - Chambi Exposition en Mexico ("Primera Convención de la Federación Internacional de Arte Fotográfico")
• 1973 - Chambi dies in Cusco, in his old studio on Calle Marqués.
• 1977 - First work in cataloguing and restoring Chambi's photographic archives, financed by the Earthwatch Foundation (Belmont, Massachusetts) marks the beginning of international recognition of his work.
• 1979 - Retrospective exposition at MOMA in New York City.
• 1981 - Latin American photography exhibit in Zurich.
• 1990 - Exposition dedicated to Chambi at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid.

References

• The Spanish-language wikipedia article from which this is translated credits the Enciclopedia Libre en Español for the article.