In this article, which is one of the first formal written accounts of the history of Chilean photography, Mario Fonseca emphasizes the absence of history, criticism, and market. He talks about the arrival of the first daguerreotypes in Chile, in 1840, and how they became an institution in Valparaíso when José Dolores Fuenzalida opened the first studio there five years later. Fonseca mentions several people (most of them foreigners) who produced landscape photographs and portraits of members of Chilean high society. There were two landmark events that were a very important part of this history: the Arte Fotográfico exhibition organized by the Santiago newspaper El Mercurio  (1904) and the Primer Salón Anual de fotografía organized by Zig-Zag magazine. This group of images reflects a collective aesthetic but is light on actual authorship. Names and details of little-known early Chilean photographers are provided, such as Jorge Sauré, Alfredo Molina, and Jorge Opazo, as well as those who are better known today, including Antonio Quintana and Sergio Larraín. Due to the high cost of portable, medium-size cameras, most photographers in the 1960s and 1970s worked for foreign firms. One of the most important events was the founding of the Asociación de Fotógrafos Independientes (AFI), whose members included Leonora Vicuña, Luis Poirot, Claudio Pérez, Marcelo Montecino, and Pedro Marinello, among others.

This article was written for the Chile Vive exhibition that was presented at Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid in 1987. The photographer and visual artist Mario Fonseca describes a possible history of photography in the Andean country, referring to events that took place between 1840 and 1987. Several of the photographers Fonseca mentions in his article showed their work at the exhibition. A key feature of this review is Fonseca’s commentary on what motivated these photographers. He focuses on two of them: Paz Errázuriz, who photographed marginalized people and the ghettos where they lived, and Luis Weinstein, who shot in flagrante photographs of urban scenes.

This article is essential reading for those who want to understand what was going on in the field of photography in Chile, mainly during the Augusto Pinochet military dictatorship (1973–90). See also “Fotografía Chilena 1990-2005” by Elisa Díaz (ICAA Digital Archive doc. no. 773531) for a description and analysis of the period immediately after the fascist coup d’état. Both texts help to contextualize the role photography played in the Chilean visual arts scene in terms of production and exhibition or circulation spaces during the lengthy authoritarian regime that was followed by the return to democracy.