Blanco, Lázaro

(1938 - 2011)

Lázazo Blanco was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua in 1938 and pursued studies in mathematics and physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He also attended Michigan State University where he focused on science pedagogy in preparation for a teaching career at the Colegio Americano in Mexico City.

In 1966, he joined the Club Fotográfico de México and, by 1968, became the director of the photographic workshop of the Casa del Lago, the Cultural Center of UNAM, where he remained until his death. He exhibited widely in Mexico, the United States, Latin American, and Europe. In 1991, The Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City organized an exhibition featuring 350 of his prints. In 2010, a retrospective was curated at the Centro de la Imagen. His photographs were published in magazines, such as Camera (Switzerland), Zoom (France), Life en español, and books such as Contemporary Photographers, Family of Woman, and Seven Mexican Portfolios. Aside from his work as a photographer, he functioned as a curator and writer, producing many catalogues and award-winning art criticism. He was a founding member and officer of the Mexican Council of Photography.

Blanco was a prolific photographer and an accomplished printer who ordered the chaos of urban life in Mexico through a geometric, formal rigor that is entirely his own. He applied modernist techniques, such as contrast and unusual vantage points, to map the solitary lives of his subjects. In his catalogue, Luces y Tiempos, individuals are most often seen as loners struggling to make their way in an environment of unrelenting light and unforgiving time. Blanco’s images are poignant and still, creating a narrative of survival in urban Mexico City.

Blanco died in Mexico City in 2011.