© Julio Cordero/Courtesy Archivo Cordero. Above: Bridal Portrait [Matrimonio] La Paz, Bolivia, c. 1925.

FotoFest’s latest exhibition Faces of History – Latin America, organized in conjunction with arts>Brookfield Properties , highlights important late 19th and early 20th Century photographers from five Latin American countries – Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. Their works are a profile of change – the mass availability of photography as an instrument for personal portraiture and collective communication and the emergence of new social classes created by the industrial growth of the late 1800s and early 1900s in Latin America. The photographers and their studios were important institutions in their time, recording life across economic and social lines, from native laborers to the wealthy and politically powerful, in these bustling, turn of the century, Latin American cities.

“As photographers ourselves and later founders of FotoFest, we had over 25 years working with photography in Latin America. Its photographic heritage is immensely rich,” says curator and FotoFest co-founder Wendy Watriss. FotoFest did a ground-breaking series of exhibitions on photography by Latin America photographers at the FotoFest 1992 Biennial in Houston. The exhibitions became the basis for a national traveling show and an award-winning bi-lingual book, Photography from Latin America, 1865-1992 published by University of Texas Press (1998).

Faces of History – Latin America is on view June 6, 2011 – August 5, 2011 at Allen center One & Two in Downtown Houston, 500 Dallas Street and 1200 Smith Street, 77002.

© Benjamín de la Calle (1869-1934, Colombia)/Courtesy of FotoFest, Houston, Texas. Balbino Jaramillo, Santa Rosa, Medellín Colombia, 1897
Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 1991, made from Original Glass Plate Negative by Fundacíon Antioqueňa para los Estudios Sociales, Medellín, Colombia.

© Agustín Víctor Casasola (1874-1928, Mexico)/Courtesy of FotoFest, Houston, Texas. Federal Government Troops Before Leaving for La Laguna to Fight Constitutionalist Revolutionaries [Tropas federales antes de salir hacia La Laguna, para combatir a revolucionarios constitucionalistas], c. 1913 Silver Gelatin Print, 1993, made from Original Glass Plate Negative by Fototeca del INAH, Pachuca, Mexico.

© Carlos and Miguel Vargas (1885-1979, Peru)/Courtesy of The Photographic Archive Project, Houston, Texas. Nocturne: Tirado Mansion [Nocturno: Casona Tirado en Siete Esquinas] Arequipa, Peru, c. 1922 Archival Digital Print, 2009, made from scan of Original Glass Plate Negative, 2002 by The Photographic Archive Project.

© Carlos and Miguel Vargas (1885-1979, Peru)/Courtesy of The Photographic Archive Project, Houston, Texas. Nocturne: Vargas Bros. Studio [Nocturno: Estudio de Arte Vargas Hnos., Portal San Agustín] Arequipa, Peru, c. 1925 Archival Digital Print, 2009, made from scan of Original Glass Plate Negative, 2002 by The Photographic Archive Project

© Benjamín de la Calle (1869-1934, Colombia)/Courtesy of FotoFest, Houston, Texas. María Anselma Restrepo, Santa Rosa Colombia, 1897
Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 1991, made from Original Glass Plate Negative by Fundacíon Antioqueňa para los Estudios Sociales, Medellín, Colombia

© Agustín Víctor Casasola (1874-1928, Mexico)/Courtesy of FotoFest, Houston, Texas. Music  Band  [Banda de música], c. 1930. Silver Gelatin Print, 1993, made from Original Glass Plate Negative by Fototeca del INAH, Pachuca, Mexico.

© Juan José de Jesús Yas (1844-1917, Guatemala)/Courtesy of FotoFest, Houston, Texas. Monseñior Ricardo Estrada Casanova, [Archbishop Ricardo Estrada Casanova], Arzobispo Guatemala, c. 1880-1916. Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 1991, made from Original Glass Plate Negative by Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica, Antigua, Guatemala.

© Agustín Víctor Casasola (1874-1928, Mexico)/Courtesy of FotoFest, Houston, Texas. General Víctoriano Huerta, Interim President of the Republic, and his Military High Command  [Gral. Víctoriano Huerta, Presidente Interino de la Repúbica y su Estado Mayor], Mexico City, 1914. Silver Gelatin Print, 1993, made from Original Glass Plate Negative by Fototeca del INAH, Pachuca, Mexico.