Theater anteroom, cabinet and stage photography 1871-1944 (Anthology by the Photographical Foundation Armando de Maria y Campos)

Introduction: Claudia Canales

Selection, digital restoration and texts Héctor Quiroga Pérez

CONACULTA / INBA-CITRU
México, 2010
340 p.

The image pool —cabinet pictures of actors and stage scenes, visit cards, postcards and newspaper cut outs— collected over many years by the researcher and chronicler of Mexican theater Armando de Maria y Campos, was acquired by INBA and was the object of a fortunate work of digitalization and physical chromatic restoration by the researcher Héctor Quiroga. In Theater Anteroom are presented over 300 selected images from the restored collection, displayed like a photo album, all within an edition that contrasts them with the original photographic material along with technical files and context commentaries written by many of our most important chroniclers —Olavarría y Ferrari, Mañón, the very Maria y Campos, Enrique Alonso, among others— who update the documentary value of the images and provide us with information and indicators on the setting, mode of attire, portrait techniques and styles, set design, the wide variety of shows —divided by genre “comedy-drama”, “opera-lyric”, “small, frivolous and suggestive”— as well as on actors, actresses and theater companies, national and international, who were significant in the field of Mexican theater from 1871 to 1944, ranging from the Empire of Maximiliano to the first stages of government of Porfirio Díaz and on to the first post-revolutionary governments.