ABSTRACT
This article proposes that in María Santibáñez’ photographs between 1920-1930, visual imaginaries and experiences of the feminine body’s agency were available to women, that have been made invisible by a deeply rooted historiographic dichotomy of Mexican culture torn between tradition and modernity. Through Greco-Roman, Oriental and Spanish themes, these feminine representations created an imaginative space to construct models for middle class women with an “intense” inner life. As a studio photographer, María Santibáñez invoked with this iconography an estheticizing tradition that elevated her commercial studio work to the level of artistic creation while at the same time asserted a cultural experience about what had good taste, was delicate and had “class”.
KEYWORDS:
Photography; pictorialism; María Santibáñez; modern girls; Mexico
