How did an Anglo lady from Chicago get to be one of Mexico's national treasures? The answer lies somewhere between the artist's generous nature and her mule-headed refusal to do as she was told. Mariana Yampolsky came to represent that nation's overlooked people and hidden places so well that Mexicans emphatically claim her as their own. She photographed the poor in a country notoriously dismissive of its downtrodden, and focused on women in the land that invented machismo. Yet she was widely admired for doing so: Elena Poniatowska, the grande dame of Mexican literature and journalism, wrote an essay titled "La profunda mexicanidad de Mariana Yampolsky" ("The Deep Mexicanness of Mariana Yampolsky"), and author Sandra Cisneros has said of her, "We see the world with the same eyes. Mariana Yampolsky's photographs are my words."
Yampolsky's El Huipil de Tapar
(Headdress).
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Consulate General of Mexico, 532 Folsom
(at Second Street), S.F.
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Born in Illinois in 1925, Yampolsky graduated from the University of Chicago and then moved to Mexico in 1944 -- an exciting time and place, particularly for visual art. She learned engraving at the famous Taller de Gràfica Popular, an outfit dedicated to making art for the masses. Although she moved on to photography, the social justice angle of the Taller stayed with her as she framed scenes of everyday life, especially indigenous women's lives. Eventually she became a naturalized Mexican citizen.
Just over a year ago, Yampolsky passed away unexpectedly at age 77. To honor her, a large coalition of arts and cultural organizations -- including the Mexican Museum, the Native American Cultural Center, and Galería de la Raza -- presents a tribute to her work called the "Mid Day Sun Exhibition." Culled from private Bay Area collections and curated by Tere Romo, it's principally organized by Maria X. Martinez, a friend of the late artist who helped name the show after an illuminating story. Manuel Alvarez Bravo, an important photographer (who, along with Lola Alvarez Bravo and Tina Modotti, was a mentor of Yampolsky), once advised the young American not to take pictures during the noon hour. The light, he explained, would be too strong. The stubborn lady disregarded this caution and made one of her signature images using sunlight streaming down from directly overhead. She called it Mid Day Sun, to make sure no one missed the point.
Stylistically, Yampolsky's work is representative of her cadre: Strong blocks of stone, stucco, and wood support dramatic skies and riveting human figures; textures come forward and are treated carefully; themes emphasize the dignity in simple people's lives. Sandra Phillips, senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, writes, "Mariana Yampolsky had not only a great sense of the unalloyed beauty and drama of what she saw in rural Mexico, not only a sense of the special ritual character of the daily events she photographed -- these she shared with other contemporaries. Yampolsky had also a sense of human relatedness, a stance at once more anthropological and personal, that marks her wonderful photographs."
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