Photo: Museo del Estanquillo

PULSE NEWS MEXICO

Mexico City’s Museo del Estanquillo on Wednesday, Jan. 11, opened a display of more than 150 images taken by photographer Librado García Smarth, considered to be one of the architects of the photographic avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century.

A native of the central Mexican state of Jalisco, García Smarth was seen as a pioneer in the use of gelatin silver and silver bromide techniques, as well as abstract pictorialism.

The works, which will be on display at the museum through the end of May, include part of the Carlos Monsiváis Collection, as well as photographs on loan from other private and public institutional collections.

García Smarth was born in 1892 and began his career as a photographer in 1910.

By the year 1919, his work was so popular and recognizable in Mexico that his portraits were commonly referred to as not photos but “Smarths,” even though he did not sign them.

The Estanquillo Museum is located at Calle Isabel la Católica 26 in downtown Mexico City.

It is open Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and
from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.