Background
Martin Chambi was born on November 5, 1891 in Coaza, Peru. He was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century.
Martin Chambi was born on November 5, 1891 in Coaza, Peru. He was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century.
When his father went to work in a Carabaya Province gold mine on a small tributary of the River Inambari, Martin went along. There he had his first contact with photography, learning the rudiments from the photographer of the Santo Domingo Mine near Coaza (owned by the Inca Mining Company of Bradford, Pa). This chance encounter planted the spark that made him seek to support himself as a professional photographer. With that idea in mind, he headed in 1908 to the city of Arequipa, where photography was more developed and where there were established photographers who had taken the time to develop individual photographic styles and impeccable technique.
Chambi initially served as an apprentice in the studio of Max T. Vargas, but after nine years set up his own studio in Sicuani in 1917, publishing his first postcards in November of that year.
In 1923 Martin Chambi moved to Cuzco and opened a studio there, photographing both society figures and his indigenous compatriots. His studio in Cuzco included a set of blinds and shutters made specifically so that he could alter the natural lighting to best suit his photographs. Widely published in various periodicals, his work appeared in El Sol, Cuzco's newspaper, la Crónica, a Lima newspaper, La Nación and La Prensa, newspapers of Buenos Aires, and the magazines Kosko and Variadades. His work was frequently exhibited in Chile, Argentina and Peru in the 1920s and '30s.
Martin Chambi produced a variety of works over his career as a photographer. Within the studio, he took many portraits of both wealthy and elite members of society, as well as the indigenous people; he also took many self-portraits. Chambi is well-known for his work in documenting the indigenous culture, including Machu-Picchu and other ruins.
In addition to taking photographs for individual commissions or for his own personal interests, Chambi also used his photographs in other publications. One such publication was the use of his photographs in postcards. The other main use for his photographs was in a weekly Argentine newspaper called La Nación ("The Nation") where he contributed photographs of artists, writers, and any other
assignments he was commissioned to do.
Indian Woman and Child from Keromarca
(Chambi's image "The Indian and the Llama" was used for an...)
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Quotes from others about the person
Julia Chambi: "my father was enchanted by light."
Edward Ranney: "Chambi was a portrait photographer with an unusual understanding of light . . . the pervasive quality of his work is a sensitive, unprejudiced receptivity to the human qualities of his subjects, a way of seeing which let their personalities speak for themselves."
Jorge Heredia: "He has been the photographer of whites who seek after his images, but also of Indians and Mestizos."
Mario Vargas Llosa: "It is wrong to focus too much on the testimonial value of his photos. They have that, indeed, but, in equal measure they express the milieu in which he lived and they show (...) that when he got behind a camera, he became a giant, a true inventor, a veritable force of invention, a recreator of life."
His son and daughter, Victor and Julia Chambi, are Peruvian photographers and maintain his old studio in Cuzco.