Portraits from the provinces: studio photography, inventions of the self and memory archives

Abstract

By selectively exploring the collections of three photographers — Manuel Jesús Serrano (1882-1957), Chichico Alkmim (1886-1978), and Baldomero Alejos (1902-1976) —, we examine studio photo- graphic portraits from the 1920s until the 1950s. In the provincial cities where they worked as portrait artists, photographic studios provided a theater of poses, modern self-fashioning, and photographic pacts between subjects and photographers. In these photographic studios, bourgeois portraits imbued with connotations of possession and individuality were largely privileged. However, the photographic studios of Serrano, Alkmim and Alejos also made possible a range of desired self-fashionings revealing ethnic variations, subjective expressions, and cultural hybridizations In this essay, we analyze images of these gifted portrait artists highlighting the intertwining between affective memories and archives; the relevance of the photographic studio as a scenographic space for modern, conventional, and also fanciful imaginaries. Finally, we explore these studio images in relation to the urban imaginary of these provincial cities.

Keywords
studio photography; provincial cities; inventions of the self; urban imaginaries