John Mraz

John Mraz (California, 1943) is a pioneer in the representation of history in modern media (photography, cinema, video, digitalization).

Studies and academic work

Mraz has written books and articles that do history of and through photography. He has directed documentary films, videotapes and digital productions about historical subjects, and has analyzed the portrayal of history in feature films. He has also been curator of major historical photographic exhibits. Mraz received a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Cruz (1986).

He moved to Mexico in 1981, and is a research professor in the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Puebla (Mexico). He has been named National Researcher Emeritus by the Secretary of Public Education. He has been a visiting professor and research fellow in Princeton, Oxford, Dartmouth College, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Auckland, the Harry Ransom Center of U. Texas, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and other institutions.

Historian Paul Vanderwood asserted, “John Mraz is considered one of the history profession’s most astute students of visual culture”.

Mraz’s books have focused largely on analyzing photographs taken in Mexico, and historian Jurgen Buchenau wrote that he is “widely considered the preeminent expert on the history of Mexican photography".

Historian John Lear attested to his pioneering status: “John Mraz began studying the modern visual culture of Latin America back when few historians took the field seriously”. His first monograph, Nacho López, was said to “answer virtually all of the obvious (but difficult) questions that usually go not only frustratingly unanswered but unasked in photographic histories". Ignacio Sánchez Prado argued that Mraz’s book, Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity, “Is without doubt the best introduction available on Mexican visual studies, and the necessary point of departure for any readers seeking to familiarize themselves with the body of work on that subject as it exists”. That book was described by Rubén Gallo, Director of Latin American Studies at Princeton University, as “the definitive history of Mexican photography...brilliantly researched, passionately argued, and beautifully written;” on the back cover of another book by Mraz, Gallo affirmed “John Mraz is undoubtedly the world expert on Mexican photography”.

Documentary Mraz’s work in documentary productions has received scholarly awards and recognition. Made on Rails was given the Hubert B. Herring Award for "Best Videotape, Film or Non-Print Media," by the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies (1988). It was shown at a session of the American Historical Association convention in 1987 that was dedicated to Mraz’s method of videohistory. Both Made on Rails and Innovating Nicaragua were awarded the Latin American Studies Association "Award of Merit in Film" for "excellence in the visual presentation of educational and artistic materials on Latin America." One reviewer said of the productions on Nicaragua and the Mexican railroad workers, “Historians can learn a lot from these films, and they can be viewed with admiration for a colleague who with little budget but with much ingenuity is ‘writing’ history through a medium which is generally appreciated but less well understood”.

Curatorship Mraz has curated a number of photographic exhibits, but four of them stand out

Nacho López: To have something to say/Nacho López: Tener algo que decir, Digital Exhibit, Memórica: México, haz memoria, 2023. https://memoricamexico.gob.mx/es/memorica/nacho-lopez-ENG. In 2017, Mraz curated the exhibit, BRACEROS, photographed by the HermanosMayo/BRACEROS fotografiados por los Hermanos Mayo. It has been exhibited in variousU.S. universities, cultural centers, and libraries, 2017–present, and has been seen by more than 140,000 visitors. When the centennial of the Mexican Revolution was celebrated in 2010, Mraz was invited to be the curator of the national exposition, “Testimonios de una guerra. Fotografìas de la Revolución Mexicana,” which was exhibited throughout Mexico at more than 30 sites and at international venues. In 1996, he curated La mirada inquieta: nuevo fotoperiodismo mexicano, 1976–1996, at the invitation of then-Director of the Centro de la Imagen, Patricia Mendoza.