MARIANA YAMPOLSKY

La sal se puso morena / Salt Changes Color

Mariana Yampolsky was born near Chicago in 1925, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1948. She first visited Mexico in 1944, moving there a few years later. She was soon a member of the Popular Graphic Arts Workshop, working as a printer and engraver, and was the first woman elected to their board of directors. In the late 1940s she began experimenting with photography, taking her first class from Lola Álvarez Bravo. She worked for a number of years with the Ministry of Education, publishing a children’s magazine series. Her works have appeared in over 45 solo exhibitions and 110 group exhibitions all over the world, and her photographs reside in 16 major collections. Fourteen books and catalogs of her works have been published, and she herself has edited 12 books and periodicals. The second publication in the Wittliff Gallery Series, The Edge of Time (UT Press, 1997), features her photographs. The Wittliff Gallery collection includes over 240 photographs by Yampolsky, making it the largest collection in the world. Mariana Yampolsky died on May 2, 2002, surrounded by family and friends.
“Mariana Yampolsky senses the subjects of her photographs even before seeing them. Her vision becomes her point of view, her storehouse of ideas, the way in which she faces life. Strict with herself, after a long laborious journey, she has the enormous satisfaction of having dedicated her life to what she loves most: Mexico and its people.”   —Elena  Poniatowska, (Imagen memoria / Image Memory, Centro de la Imagen, 1998)

PHOTO by Rogelio Cuellar