This exhibition is part of the centenial celebrations of Juan Rulfo ́s birth (1917-1986) who was both a writer and a photographer. The importance of Rulfo’s writing was recognised early and he has become a classic, not only of Mexican literature but in the Spanish-speaking world and beyond.

His achievements in photography have emerged more slowly. He had two exhibitions in his lifetime, in Guadalajara in 1960 and in Mexico City in 1980, the latter as part of a national tribute. Rulfo began photographing in the late 1930s. As a phtographer he was self-taught but with an impressive knowledge of the medium and its practitioners.

Rulfo’s own photographs were first published in 1949 in the literary magazine América. Recent research has revealed the extensive use of his photographs in magazines and periodicals during his lifetime. The present exhibition is the first complete retrospective of the photographer Juan Rulfo.

It re-traces through publications, exhibitions, and commissions, his considerable achievement as a photographer whose vision of his country was informed by a deep knowledge of Mexico, past and present. The photographer Juan Rulfo had an exceptional ability to create memorable images and this may be where his fictions and his photographs come together.