Graciela Iturbide receives the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts

▲ Interview with photographer Graciela Iturbide on January 22, 2004. Photo by Marco Peláez

Armando G. Tejeda

Correspondent

La Jornada Newspaper, Saturday, May 24, 2025, p. 6

Madrid. Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide was recognized with the 2025 Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts for her innovative approach and extraordinary artistic depth .

This is one of Europe's most important awards for artistic expression, and its long history has included such notable names as Joan Manuel Serrat, Merryl Streep, Marina Abramovic, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, Peter Brook, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Bob Dylan, Sebastião Salgado, Antoni Tápies, and Eduardo Chillida, among others. Iturbide thus becomes the first Mexican artist to receive this recognition.

Graciela Iturbide, born on May 16, 1942, in Mexico City, joined the select list of artists to receive this award. What's more, she is the first person of Mexican origin to receive it. These awards, which have several branches, have recognized the work of Mexican individuals or institutions in the past, but never in the arts. For example, Mexican anthropologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma won it in 2022, in the Social Sciences category; Alma Guillermoprieto, in 2018, in Communication and Humanities; neurobiologist Arturo Álvarez Buylla, in 2011, in Scientific and Technical Research; and the academic institutions National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), in 2009, in Communication and Humanities, and the Colegio de México, in 2001, in Social Sciences.

In 1983, Juan Rulfo won in the Literature section, and Carlos Fuentes in 1994. Other Mexican institutions that have won include the Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) in 1989 and the Guadalajara International Book Fair in 2020. Until now, however, no Mexican institution had won in the Arts.

The jury that awarded Iturbide the prize was composed of highly acclaimed artists and creators, including Claude Bussac, Olivier Díaz Suárez, María Pagés, and Isabel Muñoz, among others. In their unanimous decision, they explained their reasons as follows: Possessed of an innovative vision and endowed with extraordinary artistic depth, Iturbide's lens has portrayed human nature through photographs charged with symbolism, creating a world of her own: from the primitive to the contemporary; from the harshness of social reality to the spontaneous magic of the moment .

The jury also notes that Graciela Iturbide's black-and-white work combines documentary with a poetic sense of image. Through her camera, she captures everyday life in Mexico with a profound, respectful, and evocative gaze. Her images show not only what she sees, but also what she feels. Each photograph carries an emotional and cultural charge that invites us to look beyond what is visible .

The proposal for the award to Graciela Iturbide was made by Juan Duarte Cuadrado, Spain's ambassador to Mexico. She was chosen from a total of 49 nominations from 19 countries.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo, his teacher

Among Iturbide's biographical details, it is worth highlighting her time at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos of the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1969, intending to become a film director. However, after discovering the work of photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo and attending his classes, she decided to focus on this discipline and became the assistant to the man considered the father of contemporary Mexican photography, between 1970 and 1971.

Iturbide has portrayed the social reality not only of Mexico, but also of many places where she has been invited to work. Her work presents a documentary aspect that depicts a hypnotic world that seems to straddle the threshold between the harshest reality and the grace of spontaneous magic.

Also noteworthy are her travels to Cuba, Panama, India, Madagascar, Hungary, France, the United States and what was then East Germany, in addition to her work documenting the indigenous Mexican population in Juchitán in 1978, which later gave rise to her book Juchitán de las mujeres (1989), one of the emblematic books of her long career.

Iturbide has had solo exhibitions at some of the world's most important art centers and institutions, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, the Winterthur Photo Museum, and the Barbican Art Gallery, among others.

Her work has also been reflected in several editorial volumes such as Avándaro (1971), with texts by Luis Carrión; Graciela Iturbide: La forma y la memoria (1996), with texts by Carlos Monsiváis; Pájaros (2002), with texts by José Luis Rivas and Bruce Wagner; Graciela Iturbide: Eyes to Fly with / Ojos para volar (2006), with texts by Fabienne Bradu and Alejandro Castellanos; El baño de Frida Kahlo (2009); Graciela Iturbide: México-Roma (2011) and Graciela Iturbide: No hay nadie / There is no One (2011), with texts by Óscar Pujol, among others.

Among the awards he has received are the Order of Arts and Letters of France, the Grand Prize Mois de la Photo (France, 1988), the Guggenheim Fellowship (United States, 1988), the Hugo Erfurth Prize (Germany, 1989), the International Grand Prize (Japan, 1990), the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie Prize (France, 1991), the National Prize for Sciences and Arts (Mexico, 2008), the PHotoESPAÑA (Spain, 2010), the Lucie Award (United States, 2010), the Cornell Capa Prize from the International Center of Photography (United States, 2015) and the William Klein Prize from the French Academy of Fine Arts (2023).

This was the fourth of eight Princess of Asturias Awards presented this year, the 45th edition. Previously, the Communication and Humanities Award was given to the German philosopher and essayist of South Korean origin Byung-Chul Han; the Literature Award to the Spanish writer Eduardo Mendoza; and the Social Sciences Award to the American sociologist and demographer Douglas Massey.

The award will be presented, as usual, in a solemn ceremony at the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo in October, at an official gala presided over by the King and Queen of Spain and the Princess of Asturias.