Héctor García Cobo

Hector Garcia Cobo (August 23, 1923 – June 2, 2012) was a Mexican photographer and photojournalist who had a sixty-year career chronicling Mexico's social classes, Mexico City and various events of the 20th century, such as the 1968 student uprising. He was born poor but discovered photography in his teens and early 20s, deciding to study it seriously after his attempt to photograph the death of a coworker failed. He was sent to the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas by magazine director Edmundo Valdés who recognized García's talent. Most of García's career was related to photojournalism, working with publications both inside and outside of Mexico. However, a substantial amount of his work had more artistic and critical qualities. Many of these were exhibited in galleries and museums, with sixty five individual exhibitions during his lifetime. This not only included portraits of artists and intellectuals (including a famous portrait of David Alfaro Siqueiros at Lecumberri Prison) but also portraits of common and poor people. He was also the first photojournalist to explicitly criticize Mexico's elite, either making fun of them or contrasting them to the very poor.

Life

Héctor García Cobos was born on August 23, 1923, in Mexico City to Amparo Cobo Soberanes from the State of Mexico and Ramiro García do Porto from Portugal. He grew up in the poor and dangerous Candelaria de los Patos neighborhood in a house that has since been replaced by apartment buildings. His family was extremely poor. He received little formal education as a youth, with his mother teaching him how to read. As a child, he much preferred to wander the streets of his neighborhood, and even beyond to meet and talk to people. This led to his mother calling him “pata de perro” (lit. dog's foot), which later became the title of his autobiography. His propensity to escape from the house even drove his mother to tie him to the bed, but he said that he always found a way to escape. In the United States he worked in Maryland, New York, Philadelphia and Washington on rail lines, taking pictures as a hobby.

When he returned to Mexico, he began to work at Celuloide magazine as a laborer. There García studied along with fellow photographer Nacho López under Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Gabriel Figueroa, both still photography and movie making. Garcia is quoted as saying that Alvarez Bravo left him with “more than just the basics of the discipline but rather a concept of life, a path with limitless possibilities. I had wings but he taught me to fly.” . His wife said that he once mentioned that he wanted to be buried in a cemetery he saw in Xochimilco, with a window on the casket so he can continue watching Mexico City.

Career García's primary career was that of a photojournalist. He began working as such in 1945, while still in school. He also covered the presidential campaigns of Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo . In 1969, he accompanied writer Fernando Benítez to the Sierra Mayor in Nayarit as part of the latter's research into indigenous communities there.

However, not all of García's work was suitable or intended for newspapers and magazines. While still study under Manuel Alvarez Bravo, director Enrique Borrego gave him the chance to work with a newspaper that covered social events. His first notable photo came from this called “Nuestra señora sociedad” which shows a woman in a strapless dress, which is stepped on by a man. These photos, which had aspects of artistic and/or social criticism, eventually became the focus of a number of exhibits. Famous photos of this type include “El niño en el vientre de concretos” “Los mecapaleros de La Merced,” Cartucho quemado (a photo of the face of a Zapatista), one of a child with a machete in Atencingo, Puebla in 1960, a child using a large leaf as a rain cape in Veracruz in 1965, various photos related to the student uprising in 1968, and photos of Huichols and Coros celebrating Holy Week for a series of books by Fernando Benítez.

García's work can be found in major public and private collections including those of the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Museo de la Fotografía in Mexico, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Library of Congress in Washington, the Vatican Museums and the Wittliff collections . However, the largest collection is with the foundation García created with his wife in Mexico City, which has over a million images. and the Museo de Arte Moderno also held a retrospective of his work called Hector Garcia: visualidades inesperadas. also describing it as that of “the dog with two sandwiches.” Trapped between the demands of information and aesthetics, photojournalists can miss the news while looking for the angle or light they desire (and vice versa).” . His concern for the lower classes and everyday Mexican life was something he inherited from Manuel Alvarez Bravo. He followed a philosophy called anti-pintoresquismo, avoiding the picturesque, which he shared with a number of other photographers such as Nacho López and the Hermanos Mayo.

His work often contains political and social critique with a leitmotiv of destitute children and poor people as one of the first photojournalists to explicitly criticize the country's social elite. Much of his work expresses the contradictions of Mexican life under the one-party rule of the PRI. With Nuestra Señora Sociedad, he pokes fun at the wealthy, as a man in a tuxedo steps on the train of the dress worn by a woman. He also took photographs that showed the sharp class distinctions of Mexico. For example, in “Cada quien si grito” (Each with their own cry), García contrasts a poor rural couple with loads of goods to sell, followed by a couple in elegant evening clothes.

Also important were his portraits of a number of artists and intellectuals of the 20th century. One of his most celebrated was that of painter David Alfaro Siqueiros behind the bars of the Lecumberri prison in 1960. He took pictures of Frida Kahlo in her bed as well as in her coffin at her funeral. He did many portraits of Dolores del Río and photographed Tin Tan nude in the shower after a show in Havana in 1953.

His work has become valued not only for its information but also as works of art. Although Diego Rivera called him an excellent artist, Garcia did not like the title, considering himself a photojournalist. What I've done practically all my life is to be a witness and to make graphic testimonies of the movements and struggles of the social classes in Mexico. This continues to be the most important motive I have to do photography.

He said that all one needs to be a good photographer is “eyes” with the intention of seeing, the ability to see and to reflection on what is seen. “The whole world thinks that to take super photographs, one needs super knowledge, super equipment, super locations and with the humble “disposable” camera that is at home, never make anything interesting...” He stated that the technology of photography has made the basics accessible to children and knowing all of it is not necessary to know when you have a good picture or not. He himself often took pictures with nothing more than a Nikon snapshot camera, saying he needed nothing more. He quoted Pancho Villa who said to his troops when asked what to do “You shoot, then check what has happened.”

María y Héctor García Foundation In 2008, he created the María y Héctor García Foundation along with his wife, located in Mexico City. The foundation administers and promotes investigation into the archives of Garcia's work, as well as permanent and temporary exhibitions of the photographer's and others’ work. The facility has five halls for permanent and temporary exhibits.

The foundation holds the largest collection of García's work with over a million images on 30,000 rolls of film taken from 1943 to 2008, with most dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. As of his death in 2012, only 4,000 images were digitized including 1,731 from the Iconos exhibition. After, García's death, the Mexican government announced a project to preserve, categorize and digitalize the entire collection.