Mujer Ángel, Desierto de Sonora (Angel Woman, Sonoran Desert), 1980/1980. Vintage gelatin silver print.




Graciela Iturbide

Takes New York





Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas (Our Lady of the Iguanas), Juchitán, 1979. Vintage gelatin silver print.

Graciela Iturbide is a storyteller, perhaps one of the greatest living storytellers from Latin America. She is a photographer, but every photograph she takes is not only an image; it conveys a story, a narrative about a time and a place — Mexico mostly — the present day, and the lives of everyday people. 


There is little to no staging or theatricality to her images, around 50 vintage prints, which are now on view at Throckmorton Fine Art in New York in collaboration with Rose Gallery in Los Angeles, and one of the best photography shows of the New York fall art season. Iturbide is a realist, patiently waiting for the decisive moment to click her camera shutter and immortalize an image. This is realism crossed with a personal, poetic symbolism. 


The prints on display were all created by the artist between the late 1960s and early 1980s, hence the exhibition title. It offers a profound exploration of her early artistic journey and her deep immersion in the diverse cultures of her homeland, Mexico, says gallery owner Spencer Throckmorton, who has known the artist for over 30 years. “Having trained under the renowned Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Iturbide developed a signature style that blends a documentary approach with a deeply personal and poetic vision, capturing the complexities, rituals, and spirit of Mexico,” he says.




Los Pollos (Chickens), Juchitán, Oaxaca, 1979. 
Vintage gelatin silver print.

The show includes valuable vintage prints of iconic images such as Mujer Ángel, Desierto de Sonora (Angel Woman, Sonoran Desert), 1979, which portrays a female shaman of the indigenous Seri people walking alone to work in the Sonoran Desert. There are also several powerful pictures of Zapotec women in Juchitán, Oaxaca, including Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas (Our Lady of the Iguanas), taken in Juchitán, also from 1979, showing a woman with live iguanas arranged dramatically on her head in a manner resembling the mantle worn by the Virgin Mary.  


Pictures mingling Mexican indigenous traditions along with past colonial Spanish culture and more contemporary American influences pepper this fine exhibition, providing evidence of worlds and peoples in transition. Iturbide was recently awarded the 2025 Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts, one of over a dozen art and photography prizes she has won over her career. A full-dress retrospective, Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play, is also on view at the International Center of Photography in New York through January 12, 2026. 


Graciela Iturbide: Vintage is on view at Throckmorton Fine Art in New York from December 4, 2025, through February 28, 2026.



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Throckmorton Fine Art, 145 East 57th Street | 3rd Floor | New York, NY 10022 | 212 223.1059 | throckmorton-nyc.com