Héctor García Cobo
He was born poor but discovered photography in his teens and early 20s, deciding to study it seriously after his attempt to photograph the death of a coworker failed.
He was sent to the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas by magazine director Edmundo Valdés who recognized García's talent.
He grew up in the poor and dangerous Candelaria de los Patos neighborhood in a house that has since been replaced by apartment buildings.
[8][9] The magazine was directed by storyteller and journalist Edmundo Valdés, who recognized García's talent and sent him to study at the Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas.
[8][10] There García studied along with fellow photographer Nacho López under Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Gabriel Figueroa, both still photography and movie making.
[2][11] Garcia is quoted as saying that Alvarez Bravo left him with “more than just the basics of the discipline but rather a concept of life, a path with limitless possibilities.
[4] During his career, he made friends with artists and intellectuals such as Salvador Novo, Diego Rivera, Fernando Benítez, Frida Kahlo, Octavio Paz, Alberto Gironella, Carlos Monsiváis and José Luis Cuevas along with entertainment stars such as Pedro Infante, María Félix, Tin Tan and Tongolele .
[1][7][12] His wife said that he once mentioned that he wanted to be buried in a cemetery he saw in Xochimilco, with a window on the casket so he can continue watching Mexico City.
While still study under Manuel Alvarez Bravo, director Enrique Borrego gave him the chance to work with a newspaper that covered social events.
His first notable photo came from this called “Nuestra señora sociedad” which shows a woman in a strapless dress, which is stepped on by a man.
[17] García's work can be found in major public and private collections including those of the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Museo de la Fotografía in Mexico, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Library of Congress in Washington, the Vatican Museums and the Wittliff collections .
[4] He did a number of photographic portraits in famous people in Mexico which included Diego Rivera, Carlos Monsiváis, David Alfaro Siqueiros (the most notable being the one while in Lecumberri Prison) and Elena Poniatowska .
[1] His work has been used to illustrate various books including Mexique, Editions du Seuil by Salvador Novo (1964), Nueva Grandeza Mexicana by Fernando Benítez (1967) and Los Indios de México (1970) .
[5] Shortly after his death, Canal 22 produced a show in tribute to the photographer, which included interviews, reports and testimonies,[19] and the Museo de Arte Moderno also held a retrospective of his work called Hector Garcia: visualidades inesperadas.
[10] He called photojournalism the most dangerous and most attractive professions in the world,[20] also describing it as that of “the dog with two sandwiches.” Trapped between the demands of information and aesthetics, photojournalists can miss the news while looking for the angle or light they desire (and vice versa).” .
However, he did not take pictures indiscriminately, instead he looked for images with political, ethical aesthetic, journalistic, historic and even erotic value.
He followed a philosophy called anti-pintoresquismo, avoiding the picturesque, which he shared with a number of other photographers such as Nacho López and the Hermanos Mayo.
With Nuestra Señora Sociedad, he pokes fun at the wealthy, as a man in a tuxedo steps on the train of the dress worn by a woman.
[14] What I've done practically all my life is to be a witness and to make graphic testimonies of the movements and struggles of the social classes in Mexico.
He quoted Pancho Villa who said to his troops when asked what to do “You shoot, then check what has happened.”[20] In 2008, he created the María y Héctor García Foundation along with his wife, located in Mexico City.
[10][17] The foundation holds the largest collection of García's work with over a million images on 30,000 rolls of film taken from 1943 to 2008, with most dating from the 1950s to the 1970s.
