Graciela Iturbide pictures retrospective at SFMOMA

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents Graciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds, a retrospective spanning greater than 5 a long time of labor by the celebrated photographer. This exhibition, organized by Fundación Mapfre in collaboration with SFMOMA, immerses viewers in Iturbide’s dreamlike world of black-and-white images. On view from July 11 by November 29, 2026, Between Two Worlds returns Iturbide to SFMOMA, the primary U.S. establishment to present the Mexican photographer a monographic exhibition in 1990.  

Featuring greater than 150 images from the Nineteen Sixties to the 2010s, the exhibition narrates Iturbide’s passionate and poetic dedication to revealing the extraordinary within the on a regular basis. Much of her pictures displays her love and appreciation for her residence nation. She is captivated by an enormous spectrum of life in Mexico: from city markets in Mexico City to festivals, symbols and experiences of delivery and loss of life; intimate views of Frida Kahlo’s toilet; self-portraits; and extra. Between Two Worlds highlights the methods during which her images perform as meditations: acts of consideration that honor and ponder the folks, locations and rituals that she encounters.

“SFMOMA’s connection to Iturbide’s work spans decades—we were the first institution in the United States to present a solo exhibition of her photography in 1990—making it especially meaningful now to share the full breath of her career with our audiences,” Christopher Bedford, Helen and Charles Schwab Director of SFMOMA, stated.

“Graciela Iturbide’s photographs describe an array of life in Mexico that is so intimate and full of wonder that the viewer feels transported into a literary realm, like that of a vivid novel,” stated Delphine Sims, SFMOMA’s assistant curator of pictures.

VIEWS OF MEXICO

“The camera is an excuse to share the life of the people, the rhythm and sympathy of festivals, to discover my country.” — Graciela Iturbide

In the late Nineteen Sixties, Iturbide started learning movie on the Centro de Estudios Cinematográficos, however her mentorship beneath the influential photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo led to her love of pictures. Like Álvarez Bravo, Iturbide’s early works centered on Mexico’s interwoven cultures, growing a melodic visible language formed by metaphor, goals and the depictions of life cycles. Between Two Worlds features a show of artworks by Iturbide and Álvarez Bravo in dialogue, underscoring their shared affect, divergent approaches and SFMOMA’s assortment of classic prints by each artists.

Many of Iturbide’s early images had been taken whereas she meandered Mexico City’s markets and streets and frequented annual regional festivals. She was captivated by occasions and practices that interweave Catholic rituals with Indigenous traditions. Across these photos, she captured the poetic—and infrequently uncanny—facets of life in Mexico.

In the late Nineteen Seventies and early Eighties, Iturbide created a few of her most important early work whereas she lived with Indigenous communities, together with the Seri of the Sonoran Desert and the Zapotec ladies of Juchitán, Oaxaca. On and off for a number of years, Iturbide lived among the many Juchitecas, witnessing the methods during which ladies and muxes (those that stay past the gender binaries of female and male) play central roles. She was a respectful collaborator as she photographed lyrical moments inside these communities and their distinct and infrequently ancestral methods of life.

EVERYDAY FANTASTIC

Iturbide has lengthy believed her digicam permits her to narrate to the world, and this impulse has guided her curiosity within the methods folks make which means and fantasy of their day by day lives, from Madagascar to India to Italy. Across the lengthy arc of her profession in Mexico and through her worldwide travels, Iturbide has been captivated by parts of the pure world, typically with a concentrate on chicken life.

In the early 2010s, a go to to the Southern U.S. precipitated a change in her relationship to the land, and the main focus of her work shifted away from the physique in the direction of expansive and summary landscapes.

HONORING FRIDA KAHLO

The exhibition features a centered number of images that Iturbide made in 2008 in Frida Kahlo’s toilet on the Casa Azul. Iturbide was the primary to enter the room, which, on the request of Diego Rivera, had remained sealed for 50 years following Kahlo’s loss of life in 1954. Invited to doc the room earlier than its contents had been catalogued, Iturbide photographed the area in its untouched state, providing a uncommon and intimate view of Kahlo’s private life by the objects she lived with and left behind.

BIOGRAPHY

Graciela Iturbide (b. 1942, Mexico City) lives and works in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship; the Hasselblad Foundation Photography Award; the Lucie Award for Achievement in Fine Art; and was the 2025 recipient of the distinguished Princess of the Asturias Award for the Arts in Spain.

Her works are within the everlasting collections of museums around the globe, together with The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; and The San Diego Museum of Art.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third Street; San Francisco, CA 94103

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is among the largest museums of recent and up to date artwork within the United States and a thriving cultural middle for the Bay Area. Our outstanding assortment of portray, sculpture, pictures, structure, design and media arts is housed in a LEED Gold–licensed constructing designed by the worldwide architects Snøhetta and Mario Botta.

In addition to our seven gallery flooring, SFMOMA affords greater than 45,000 sq. toes of free, art-filled public area open to all.

Visit sfmoma.org or name 415.357.4000 for extra data.