The Credito Valtellinese Group Gallery is now hosting a major retrospective exhibition of the Mexican photographer Juan Rulfo.

Internationally renowned for his literary production, Juan Rulfo is one of the most esteemed Mexican writers of the 20th century. But he was also an accomplished photographer. Traditionally, he has never been regarded as a prolific novelist. In fact, also thanks to a collection of photographs that has been much appreciated by the public in the last years, Rulfo is considered today much more prolific as a photographer. His photographic output includes about 6,000 negatives.
Photography became a passion with him and was not short-lived. Rulfo wrote about memories from the past, abandonment, death. Starkly evocative of the rural Mexico of his youth, of which he was able to capture the main features, the subjects of his photographs are basically the same.

Mexico is the only subject of his photographs, which portray native Mexicans, the farmers' everyday life in the fields and at the village, wild nature with the Tulantongoe Falls, odd-shaped cactuses, tree trunks worn away by the sea waves. The travels he made in the years between 1945 and 1955 provided the background of his photography. The great number of photographs portraying the landscape he took during those years have become icons. The dramatic power of his shots recalls some of the works by Ansel Adams and E. Weston. He played with light and shade. The light was an essential element also in portraying monuments. Rulfo had a special bent for architecture and history. He wanted to portray the Mexican architecture by photographing churches, convents, and luxury estates in his native country. Most of these photographs portray only ruins. Rulfo, in fact, experienced the Mexican Revolution, which caused widespread destruction, and architecture witnessed the great suffering of his country. As Rulfo was very touched by these events, he mainly chose the subjects of his photographs on a sentimental basis rather than look at the quality of the architecture.
Mounted in association with Jaca Book and Mexico City Juan Rulfo Foundation, the exhibition presents over 100 big and middle-sized duotone photographs, which witness Rulfo's many interests in portraying natural landscapes and society, pre-Hispanic and colonial architecture. An extraordinary body of work, which allows going through his experiences in Guadalajara and Mexico City during the 1940s and 1950s.

JUAN RULFO

Juan Rulfo Pérez was born in Apulco, a small village in the province of Jalisco (Mexico), in 1917. After his parents died during the Mexican Revolution, he was sent to an orphanage in Guadalajara.

Rulfo's career as a writer began in 1945 with the publication of his short stories in the literary review 'Pan'. This first collection of short stories was later to be known as 'El llano en llamas' (1953).

With the publication of 'El llano en llamas' (the burning plane), in 1953, and 'Pedro Paramo', in 1955, he became one of the major novelists and short-story writers of his time. In 1983, he received the prize Principe delle Asturie.

Typical of Rulfo's stories were corruption, violence, and the harsh of provincial life.

Since the 1940s, along with his literary activity, Rulfo has started working as a photographer. He travelled around Mexico. The most prolific period was in the years from 1945 to 1955. One of the most important books on Rulfo's photography is the catalogue of his personal exhibition in Spain 'Mexico: photographer Juan Rulfo', published by Lunwerg Editores.

He died in Mexico in 1986.