Martín Chambi

Who was Martín Chambi?

Martín Chambi Jiménez or Martín Chambi de Coaza, was a photographer, originally from southern Peru. He was one of the first major indigenous Latin American photographers.

Recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs, he was a prolific portrait photographer in the towns and countryside of the Peruvian Andes. As well as being the leading portrait photographer in Cuzco, Chambi made many landscape photographs, which he sold mainly in the form of postcards, a format he pioneered of in Peru.

In 1979, New York's MOMA held a Chambi retrospective, which later traveled to various locations and inspired other international expositions of his work.