Julio Cordero
(Bolivia, 1879 - 1961)
Chola Wearing a Black Scarf,
La Paz, Bolivia
(Sra. De Mantón, La Paz, Bolivia),
c. 1915
Inkjet Print, Printed by The Photographic Archive Project

$400 SOLD

Unsigned

This print was made by curator Peter Yenne, The Photographic Archive Project, for the FOTOFEST2002 exhibit in coordination with Cordero’s grandson.

Julio Cordero was born in 1879 in Pucarani, Bolivia, a small village, and moved to the capital, La Paz, around 1895.  He apprenticed in the studio of two Peruvian photographers, the Brothers Valdez. In 1900, he opened his own studio.  Four years later, Cordero was appointed official presidential photographer, a post he held until 1920.  During a long career, he documented nearly every aspect of life and culture in La Paz and the surrounding region.  In addition to traditional studio portraiture, he photographed carnivals, religious processions, funerals, military maneuvers, police work, street life, and a wide variety of ethnographic subjects.  He died in La Paz, in 1961, at the age of eighty-two.  Since then, his extensive archive has been carefully preserved by his grandson. FotoFest sponsored a one-person exhibit of Cordero’s work for FOTOFEST2002. There are few known vintage prints of Cordero’s work.