Leo Matiz

1917 – 1998 Retrospective
Rare photographs from the estate of Leo Matiz
Curated by James Cavello

May 3 - June 28, 2001

Opening reception by Invitation Only

Westwood Gallery in SoHo, New York will present an outstanding selection of 100 photographs by the most important Colombian photographer of the 20th century, Leo Matiz. He was born in 1917, in the seaside village of Aracataca (Colombia), also known as the mythical "Macondo" of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Leo Matiz documented more than 60 years of history in photographs. His work includes photographs of rural and urban landscapes, abstract forms found in architecture and nature, in addition to portraits of well-known individuals in the fields of art and politics and narrative photographs of native Latin Americans. Although Leo Matiz traveled his entire life covering four continents and experiencing the different cultures, people and events, he was never far from his passion for art, which included drawing , painting, writing and foremost photography.

While Matiz was still a teenager his first caricatures were published in the Colombian magazine, Civilización, and he later founded his own publication called Lauros. In 1937 the editor of the daily newspaper, El Tiempo, urged Matiz to work as a photographer for the newspaper and provided a camera as incentive for Matiz's work. Two years later he began his first tour of Colombia as a photographic reporter completing special reports for El Tiempo, El Espectador and for the Bogotá based magazine La Estampa. He traveled to Panama, traversed Central America on foot and went on to work in Mexico. Matiz lived in Mexico for approximately ten years from 1940 and collaborated with numerous artists, such as Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Gabriel Figueroa on Mexican film projects and David Alfaro Siqueiros on the mural "Cuauhtemoc against the Myth". Also, he photographed Frida Kahlo, characterizing her strength and sensitivity in a number of images. Ten photographs of Frida Kahlo will be on view, some taken in the Blue House, others in her daily life, in addition to personifying poses that capture her mystique. Many of these photographs have never before been published in any of the eleven books on Leo Matiz.

In 1948 Matiz was living in New York City and worked as a photo-journalist for Life magazine. In that same year the United Nations gave him the job of documenting the intense conflict in the Middle East. During these assignments he witnessed and photographed assasinations and shootings, while experiencing his own personal pain and suffering. By the end of the 1940's Leo Matiz was presented the award for Best Photo Journalist of Mexico and was also considered one of the ten best living photographers in the world.

In the 1950's Leo Matiz opened the first studio/gallery in Bogotá, Colombia, which soon became an integral part of the bohemian scene for artists, writers and intellectuals. In 1951 Matiz launched the premiere exhibition of paintings by a 19 year old artist, Fernando Botero. This year, 2001, marks the 50th anniversary of the first Botero exhibition in Matiz's studio. Westwood Gallery will exhibit vintage photographs of Botero at the beginning of his career, along with never- before-published or exhibited photographs of Botero's first paintings, strongly influenced by Pablo Picasso's 1905 and 1906 Expressionist paintings.

Some of the legendary Latin American portraits on exhibit will include, Mexican film star, Maria Félix, Mexican composer, Agustín Lara, Spanish surrealist film director, Luis Buñuel, Colombian poet, León de Greiff and many others. Additional important portraits include, the first African-American opera singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, Marion Anderson and Russian artist, Marc Chagall.

Other meaningful portraits which are a substantial part of his oeuvre include images of native Latin Americans, workers, peasants, women, children and elderly. Matiz shows us a different story about their lives in the most unwelcoming places, whose existence becomes heroic. One iconic photograph (The Fisherman, Colombia 1939) depicts a fisherman casting a net so large it encompasses the entire sky capturing a fleeting moment of beauty. This image leaves a lasting impression with the viewer and many photographers have tried to replicate it without success.

From the 1950's through the 70's, as industrial development took place throughout the Americas, Matiz photographed abstract forms that his eye observed in construction sites, shipyards, bridges, machinery and nature. The angles and geometric forms play with light, creating shapes and repetitious patterns within each structure.

In 1978 Leo Matiz lost the sight in his left eye, his camera eye, when he was accosted by a thief trying to steal his photography equipment. He persevered and his true love for the camera continued throughout his life. Matiz was honored by the French government in 1995 with a Knighthood of Arts and Letters for his extraordinary contribution to the art of photography. In the last decade, there have been numerous international exhibitions of his work. The most recent exhibition in the United States was at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington D.C. which ended in March 2001. Matiz died in 1998 leaving us thousands of images as a contribution to the historic and artistic legacy of photography.

His daughter, Alejandra Matiz, established the Leo Matiz Foundation dedicated to the preservation of archives of Leo Matiz and furthering educational and cultural activities based on his work.