Nineteenth Century Brazilian Photography at the University of New Mexico
In the nearly 50 years since the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology has been in its present location, the Museum has hosted approximately 150 temporary exhibitions. Over the next few weeks, we will look back at some of them.
In 1988, the Special Collections Department of UNM’s Zimmerman Library and the Latin American and Iberian Institute to host a traveling exhibition from the Museo de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition grew out of the Library’s multi-year efforts to build photographic collections from Brazil and their relations with the Museo’s newly founded Department of Photography, Video, and New Technologies.
Featuring the works of nine photographers taken between 1858 and 1898, the traveling exhibition was supplemented by works from the Library’s collection and the collection of H.L. Hoffenberg, author of Nineteenth Century South American Photographs. Given space limitations the 15 photographs featured in the Maxwell’s exhibition included an 1865 image of Indigenous people from the Solimões River region by Albert Frisch (1840-1918) taken during the first photographic exhibition to the Upper Amazon (featured in the exhibition brochure).The work of Marc Ferrez (1843-1923), best known for his late 19th landscapes of Rio de Janeiro dominated the exhibition, comprising 13 of the 15 images (the other was a landscape view by George Leuzinger, 1813-1892) Several of Ferrez’ photographs are held by the UNM Art Museum and can be seen online here
To see more of Ferrez’ work, visit https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1439/marc-ferrez-brazilian-1843-1923/
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