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Photographic Work
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| Alfredo Boulton by Fernando Carrizales, 1993 |
Between 1928, when he returns to Venezuela after studying in Europe, and 1992, when he takes his last images, Alfredo Boulton carried out a considerable photographic production, all centered around one main topic: Venezuela, its landscapes, its inhabitants, its art and history, while seeking, during his journeys into the Greco-Latin origins of Europe, the cultural sources of Latin America.
The considerable collection of images of great artistic value gathered here, as a result of a persistent and thoughtful practice of photography during 64 years, represent a document deeply set in the memory of a nation.
1928 – 1937 Boulton’s first period is clearly divided between surrealist-type essays (Macbeth, 1928) and his first nativist studies, deeply rooted in Venezuelan history and geography (Blanca, 1930). He photographed the city of Caracas and its surroundings that, stimulated by the large-scale development of the oil industry, were being rapidly transformed, outstripping the urban structure inherited from the Spanish colony.
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| Macbeth, 1928 | Blanca, 1930 | Path to Gamboa, 1930 |
1938 – 1956 Boulton began his national photographic project, in an attempt to capture the autochthonous Spanish-American aesthetic, the result of an intense process of racial and cultural blending. During this period he published his first photographic works on the Venezuelan Andes, the island of Margarita and the Llanos (central plains), the latter focusing on the figure of José Antonio Páez, hero of Venezuelan independence. His interest in history and art steered his research toward these aspects of his country, especially the iconography of Venezuela’s founding fathers. This is also the time of long journeys into the Greek and Latin origins of Europe in quest for the sources of Western civilization.
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| los llanos de ortiz, 1948 | Aerial view of de Margarita, 1944 | Reims, 1950 |
1956 – 1995 After the publication of the first iconographic book on the portrait of Simón Bolívar, the Liberator of Latin America, Boulton concentrated his efforts for more than a decade on historical studies, producing work of crucial importance to Venezuela. In 1968, he returned to photography – his original vocation – with his work on aboriginal Venezuelan ceramics, published in 1978. The 1980′s and the 1990’s were a time of personal reassessment, culminating in the publication of many photographs he had taken over 60 years. His last pictures (1992) are of the valley of Caracas from the garden of his house looking out on the city, as he had done in 1943. But the city he knew has vanished; in todays chaotic capital, almost nothing remains of the Caribbean town, impregnated with its colonial past, where Alfredo Boulton was born.
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| Enase’s Mouth | In the shade of the Naranjillo trees, 1992 |