- I'm Steve and I'm the assistant curator
for the Southwest Writers Collection here.
And I'm also the one on our
staff who do the black bean,
meaning that I get to
stand before you tonight
as our temporary director,
while we conduct a search to
fill the rather large hole
that was left when Connie
Todd retired back in January.
And it's so good to have
you all here this evening
at the Wittliff Collections,
we're very pleased to
have you as our guests.
Although, in some ways I
don't think guest is exactly
the right word, because
the spirit of this place
is such that we hope you consider
the Wittliff Collections,
your home or one of your homes,
a place where you can
come to be nourished,
delighted and inspired,
and so with that in mind,
I'd really like to say,
just welcome home
it's good to have you here, thank you.
(audience cheers)
Before we begin our program
with our featured speaker,
you may have heard a thing or two about.
I'd like to recognize
some of the fine people
who have helped to make
our work possible here.
And among those, we have the president
of Texas State University
San Marcos, Denise Trauth,
and her husband Dr. John Huffman here.
(audience cheers)
(Steve claps)
We also have Dr. Van Wyatt,
our Vice President for
information technology,
thank you Van.
(audience applause)
And Joan Heath is here, our
Assistant Vice President
for the university library, hey John .
(audience applause)
We have a wonderful staff
at the Wittliff Collections
if I try to introduce everybody
like Connie used to do it,
will just drive us crazy
because it would go on forever
and we would all get so embarrassed,
so I promised I wouldn't do that
but the windows collection staff
and our wonderful Bobcat student workers,
please just kinda raise
your hands or stand up
and be acknowledged for all
the great work that you do.
Thank you all.
(audience cheers)
And we also have our founding donor here
this evening, Mr. Bill Wittliff.
It's always an honor to have
you here Bill, thank you.
(audience cheers)
And just few more things
I'd like to do too,
which is recognize some of
our advisory board members
who are here this evening,
if you'd like to just wave
or stand however you'd like to do this,
but we have Susan Bailey here,
and Dan Bullock and Bill Cunningham,
Faustinus Deraet, AV Boehner,
Steve Clark and Mary Crouch.
Thank you all for your
service on our advisory board
I really appreciate it.
(audience cheers)
And also, I believe that Susan
Frost is here this evening,
and we'd like very much
acknowledge her wonderful gift,
major donation of Hugo Brehme material.
This is a very significant
collection that took,
I think about 15 years
for you to build Susan?
And these are about
1800 photographic images
taken by Hugo Brehme in Mexico
during the early part of the 20th century.
And some of these images are
part of our current exhibit
on Viva Mexico and if you saw
this beautiful exhibit card
that I think went out in the mail to you,
you'll see one of those fine images too.
So thank you, Susan.
And I'd like to mention
to you that Viva Mexico
was curated by Carla Ellard,
who's standing at the back.
Carla's, our assistant curator
(audience cheers)
for the photography collection.
And Connie Todd in retirement
came in and helped arrange
the exhibit with Carla so thanks Connie.
This exhibit is part of the Texas
and Mexico 1810 to 2010 commemoration
at Texas State University,
and this was developed in partnership
with the Mexican consulate of Austin
and Connie will speak in a few moments
about our Viva Mexico exhibit.
Our other photography exhibit
is Bill Wittliff's vaquero,
genesis of the Texas cowboy.
And many of you I'm sure are familiar
with Bill's classic vaquero photos,
which were taken in the
early 1970s in Mexico,
and capture a vanishing tradition.
And what we have here are the
digital carbon ink prints,
which Humanities Texas is offering
as a traveling exhibition to schools,
libraries and museums throughout
Texas and the United States
for the next five years.
This is a project that was
put together by Mike Gillette,
the executive director
of humanities, Texas,
along with our own Carla
Ellard and Melissa Hoover,
the director of exhibitions
for humanity Texas.
And we're delighted really
to have this show make
a stop here with the Wittliff Collections
before it moves on to its other venues
so we think Humanities Texas
for everything they've done
to help us with this.
And I'm going to introduce
Connie Todd in just a moment,
but before I do that like
to have Melissa Hoover
from Humanities Texas, step forward
and tell us a little bit
about the vaquero exhibition.
Melissa, are you here?
(audience cheers)
- Good evening, I'm not that
tall, there we go (laughs).
It's great to see such a
big crowd here tonight,
I'm really excited about this.
As you heard, I'm the
director of exhibitions
for Humanities Texas.
Humanities Texas is the state affiliate
to the National Endowment
for the humanities.
So we're a private nonprofit,
we're based in Austin,
but we serve the entire state of Texas.
We have a number of
programs, grants, programs,
education, awards, and of course,
my department is traveling exhibitions.
We have over 60 different
titles that we travel
throughout the state and the nation
and sometimes out of the country.
And the vaquero exhibition
is our most recent exhibit
which we partnered with
the Wittliff Collections on
and it's just been a
delight to work with Bill
and with Connie and Carla
and Beverly on this exhibit
and we hope to be working
on some more very shortly.
So I hope you enjoy the exhibit
and if you have any questions
about Humanities Texas,
I'm always happy to answer those,
and have a great night, thanks.
(audience cheers)
- Okay, having been introduced
by Connie Todd myself a timer
to the tables are turned now
so this is quite an honor for me.
This is a person who, as they say,
really needs no introduction,
but I like to do it anyway.
Connie Todd was born in Austin,
and today she lives in the same house
on South Congress where
her grandparents lived.
She got to be pretty well known in Austin,
even as a youngster, along
with her brother Terry,
she was the city's ping pong
doubles champion in the 1950s.
(audience laughs)
And was, I think (laughs)
Terry claimed it, you know,
you sort of climbed on him, okay.
At the tender age of 14, I think it was,
Connie joined a well known orchestra
in town as the lead vocalist.
And that love of singing
has remained a constant
in her life.
And for several years now,
she's been the lead singer
for The Occasionals.
And that's the band that plays regularly,
(audience laughs)
most Tuesday nights at
Mirabelles in Austin
if you haven't been you
should really check it out.
For those of you who haven't
heard Connie's thing,
it's a real treat.
She specializes in American pop standards
from the 40s and 50s.
And she is particularly well
known among her many fans
for her unforgettable
rendition of shrimp boats
is a common.
(laughs)
Let's see, and I should also
mention that Connie graduated,
graduated Magna Cum Laude
from the University of Texas
with both a Bachelor's
and Master's in Spanish.
She is a member of five
honorary fraternities,
including Phi Beta Kappa,
which as we all know counts
some other distinguished
Americans among its ranks,
including Lynne Cheney,
Robert Bork, Phyllis Schlafly,
Samuel Alito, personal
heroes to Connie all of them.
(laughs)
Oh, and also George Bush.
(laughs)
And I'm pretty sure that's
George Bush the elder.
(laughs)
I spoke to Connie's beloved
brother, Terry Todd,
earlier this week, much
to her consternation.
And Terry mentioned that
Phi Beta Kappa in particular
was very meaningful to
Connie, as Terry put it.
She wore that damn golden key everywhere.
(laughs)
And she was constantly finding ways
to work Phi Beta Kappa into conversations.
Terry, I don't think was
in Phi Beta Kappa himself.
(laughs)
Connie also spent a year
studying in Mexico City,
which I promised not to talk about at all.
She later taught Spanish
and humanities courses
at Mercer College in Georgia and the 1970s
where I believe Connie was
doing a lot of organic farming
and hanging out with the Allman Brothers.
Those are good years man, good years.
And they got better in the early 1980s,
Connie began working for Bill Wittliff
in Austin is his executive assistant.
And during that time, she
helped manage the Encino Press
and served as script
editor, casting director
and production associate
on many of Bill's film
and television projects.
Connie also got to know
many of the writers
and photographers whose works
are held in the Wittliff Collections.
And she in fact listed and
described much in the material
that we have here, generating researches
that have come in handy
to many over the years.
And it was about 13 years ago
that Connie joined the Wittliff
Collections as our leader
and I assume most of
you here pretty familiar
with her incredible accomplishments
really over that time.
I was here when Connie started,
and we had a staff of three
and it was always kind
of a big occasion for us
when some lost soul wandered
up to the seventh floor
(laughs)
and discovered that we were here.
Things have changed a lot since then,
and Connie has had so
much to do with that.
During her tenure, we
saw a 5,000% increase
in our archival accessions.
And I'm not sure I mean
can't even imagine but,
(audience cheers)
and our visitation is
risen from a few dozen
to 10s of thousands of people each year,
which is so wonderful to see
people coming through here.
We host over 100 events each year,
Connie curated at least 25 major exhibits.
And just as an example,
one of these was (in foreign language)
the exquisite eye, which
traveled the country
for three years as a touring exhibit
sponsored by Exhibits USA.
And today I went online to
look up the exhibit catalog,
which is being sold through
Amazon and it's $200, so,
in addition to the exhibits
there are the numerous books
that Connie had a hand and
creating, both as a series editor
for the Southwestern
Writers Collection Series
with UT Press, and as volume
editor for selected titles
in the Southwestern and Mexican
Photography book series.
During her tenure, the
staff here increased
from three to 12 people, and we're a group
that under Connie's direction
enjoyed extremely high morale.
Something I'm sorry to say
is completely dissipated
now that you're gone Connie,
(audience laughs)
but, you know,
we'll see how that goes.
And Connie, of course,
oversaw the expansion
of the new spaces that we're in tonight.
So basically, and among the last page,
so we're getting close.
Connie, just you know, she really,
I hate to use just the adjectives
but that's kinda where I am at this point.
She brought tremendous energy and vision
and creativity and wisdom as she guided
the Wittliff Collections,
she helped transform
those once Texas State
University's best kept secret
into an internationally
renowned creative center.
And those of us fortunate
enough to work with Connie
not only liked her and learned
from her and respected her,
we came to love her,
Connie we all love you.
It's so good to have you
back with us this evening,
we're so glad you could come.
Thank you for everything
and welcome home Connie.
(audience cheers)
- You like me, you really like me.
(laughs) This microphone is so long.
Well, what an introduction Steve (laughs).
But you forgot that I was
also city Yo-Yo champion.
(laughs)
I think there were three
girls in the competition
I believe Terry might have
been boys' Yo-Yo champion.
There were a few of those I
think all I had to do was walk
the dog and maybe rock
the baby that certain.
(audience laughs)
He had to do brain twister
or something where, you know,
where the Yo-Yo ended up in
his pocket, ah I don't know.
Anyway, there was that but
that's it's an oversight
that we can all forgive.
(audience laughs)
And I'm very glad to hear that the price
of that catalog because I
have several copies at home.
(audience laughs)
Now that I'm on the dole, (laughs).
Anyway, well it's been, you know,
all of the staff members
here, administrators here,
Denise and Van and John and Bill
of course not that he's an administrator
or whatever be mistake for one,
(laughs) I meant that
in the nicest possible way (laughs).
Everybody, you know,
everybody has had a huge hand
in the wonderful expansion
that we've enjoyed
over the past few years
that I'm sure will continue.
(Connie laughs)
Anyway, it's lovely to be back
and I'm enjoying seeing
the pictures on the wall.
When I left they were
just, we had placed them
and they were just leaning
and so it's wonderful
to see them vertical and they're
just such fabulous images,
oh my gosh, in these rooms
and also the vaquero images.
Well, it's an embarrassment
of riches I'll tell you that.
So and also I would like to
thank before we start tonight,
(indistinct) I hate these.
But I wanna thank Katie
Saltzman and Carla Ellard
for helping me with the slideshow.
Which is also known as PowerPoint (laughs)
(in foreign language)
No, you're all afraid now
that I'm just gonna speak
in Spanish but I'm not.
As Steve mentioned, it's
the bicentennial of...
But Stephen Harrigan would not be afraid
because he speaks Spanish
and I happen to know it.
(laughs)
Anyway, this is the
bicentennial as Steve mentioned,
it's an incredible year for
Mexico, the bicentennial
of the war of independence
from Spain from in 1810
and the 100th anniversary
of the 1910 revolution.
We decided to celebrate this
by presenting more than 100 historical
and modern documentary
and art photographs.
They interpret Mexico through
images which bear witness
to the strength of
subject, and the vitality
of vision captured by
more than 40 photographers
from the Wittliff Collections.
As Steve mentioned, this is
part of our Texas Mexico,
the Texas State University's
Texas Mexico commemoration.
There are other events
throughout the year on campus
so if any of you are interested,
be sure and go to the online schedule
or call the university operator,
find out where these events are.
I know for sure there's a
Casasolas exhibit coming up
at the art building,
which is just I think it
starts in May, doesn't Carla?
Anyway, it's gonna be a knockout
and so try to come to that,
I think you'll all enjoy it.
Casasolas, the Casasolas archive
is probably if you think
about the Matthew Brady photos
that were taken during
the American Civil War.
Casasolas is kind of like that,
but covers a lot more time,
you know, it covers before
the 1910 revolution,
and well beyond it's
an astonishing archive.
Much of what you remember
seeing, much of what you remember
about the Mexican Revolution comes
from seeing those Casasolas photographs.
Now that I'm retired,
I can say that the Mexican
photography collection here
has always been my favorite.
And (laughs) it's like,
you can't play favorites,
it's you know, but now I can safely.
One of the reasons apart from
its amazing aesthetic quality
is that it represents a true
transnational collection,
including as it does works
by Mexican artists interpreting
Mexico in the world,
and works by foreign artists,
including those from the
US, interpreting Mexico.
This collection of images
exists as a true language
all its own in a way for anyone,
whether they speak Spanish
or not to understand
or at least begin to understand
the complicated essence
of our most important neighbor.
As a student of the Spanish
language and literature
and culture, Latin America
and Mexico in particular,
these images resonate deeply for me.
And during the early
development of the collection,
the Mexican photographs were the ones
that I looked at most closely.
For the importance of images
as a way into a culture
is a truly remarkable thing.
Susan Sontag, I'm gonna
read you a little bit
from Susan Sontag's incredible
book called "On Photography."
Still the best selling
photography text ever.
This is what she had to say
and she was sort of, she
was really kind of talking,
she's really, she was kind of rehashing
some of Walter Benjamin's
ideas about photography
and we'll talk a little more
about Walter Benjamin later.
He's not from West Texas.
He never went to the Dairy Queen (laughs).
"Humankind lingers and
regenerately in Plato's cave,
still reveling its age old habit
in mere images of the truth.
But being educated by photographs
is not like being educated by
older, more artisinal images.
For one thing, there are
great many more images around
claiming our attention.
The inventory started in 1839
and since then, just about
everything has been photographed
or so it seems.
The very insatiability
of the photographing eye
changes the terms of confinement
in the cave, our world.
In teaching us a new visual code,
photographs alter and enlarge our notions
of what is worth looking at
and what we have a right to observe.
The re grammar, and even more importantly,
an ethics of seeing.
Finally, the most grandiose result
of the photographic enterprise
is to give us the sense
that we can hold the
whole world in our heads
as an anthology of images.
Photographs are perhaps
the most mysterious
of all the objects that make up
or thicken the environment
that we recognize as modern.
They really are experience
captured, and the camera
is the ideal arm of consciousness
in its acquisitive mood.
Even when photographers are most concerned
with mirroring reality,
they're still haunted
by tacit imperatives of
taste and conscience.
The immensely gifted members
of the Farm Security
Administration, photographic project
of the late 1930s that includes
people like Walker Evans,
Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn,
Russell Lee, would take dozens
of frontal pictures of one of
their sharecropper subjects
until satisfied they'd gotten
just the right look on film,
the precise expression
on the subjects face
that supported their own
notions about poverty,
light, dignity, texture,
exploitation and geometry."
Will show you some of those.
These are not photos that
are in the collection,
but they just illustrate
her point very well.
There's Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother.
Here's Russell Lee's photo,
The hands of Mrs. Ostermeyer,
the girl through the car window,
and very famous couple,
a couple of the radio.
This was when things
were kind of looking up.
Things were you know, things
were not so bad as they were
when the girl was looking
through the cracked car window
but this is at a time
when you could buy a radio
and things were looking better.
Kind of like maybe where
we are now I don't know.
In deciding how a picture should look,
in preferring one exposure to another,
photographers are always
imposing standards
on their subjects.
Although there's a sense
in which the camera does
indeed capture reality,
not just interpreted
photographs or as much interpretation
of the world, as paintings
and drawings are.
Here's one, this as you all know,
was not the first time the
flag was raised on Iwo Jima,
but it certainly was
the most eloquent time.
This is Laura Gilpin's Navajo family.
These occasions, there are
occasions when the making
of photographs is
relatively undiscriminating,
promiscuous or self effacing,
but that they do not
less than the didacticism
of the entire enterprise.
So here are some shots taken on the flag.
These two really astonishing.
That's the death storm, the
Rothstein depression era.
And this is a photo that's
not in our collection,
but it's just such an iconic
photo of the Vietnam War.
It's one that we all remember.
All these photos, as I said,
are part of the Wittliff Collections
except for the last one.
We see these tacit imperatives
of taste and conscience as well
in the great documentarians of Mexico.
You will recognize the following images
as one featured in this exhibition.
The older documentarians
I mean in that group,
I'm including Mariana Yampolsky,
Nacho Lopez, Hector
Garcia, and Rodrigo Moya.
I'm sorry, let's go back to (laughs)
Oh, no, I'm in trouble now, that's okay.
The first one was Mariana
Yampolsky (in foreign language)
waiting for the priest,
and then the dancers were by Nacho Lopez.
This is Hector Garcia,
waiting for the future
or anticipating the future.
And this is another Hector
Garcia, boy with machete.
Rodrigo Moya was a little younger
than most of the other than Nacho
and then the others he's still living
he's the only one.
Well, actually Hector
Garcia is still alive too.
This is LP stiletto (in foreign language)
and we go back well, nevermind
(laughs)
The monumentos, Rodrigo did
a lot of war photography
during revolutions
throughout Latin America
and so he was ready kind
of on the spot to take
and loved the many demonstrations
that were available
to him in Mexico City over the years.
The younger generation
include Marco Antonio Cruz.
This is one of his a holy
week ceremony, just amazing.
And this is his (in foreign language)
the blind boy and the fire serpent.
He did a whole series
on the blind in Mexico.
This is a little boy
seeing the fire serpent
for the first time.
Also, we have Aniak Martinus
and Francisco Mata Rosas
the Illuminatos, Yolanda Andrade.
(in foreign language)
to Pedro with love.
And also El Grito,
which we've used in many
of our publications,
a fabulous she's great
street photographer.
This is (in foreign language),
and Antonio Turok,
the Cosecha Gloriosa, and Huiothesia.
One of the things that you'll notice
as you look at these somewhat
blurry images on the screen,
is the delicacy of photography
and how important it is
to be able to see a real
image, the actual image
to come to a gallery and see
the image up on the wall.
It's a different experience altogether.
You can see them in books too,
of course you can see them
on film, but come to it,
this is one of the great offerings
we have here is putting
up the actual photographs,
or if you're particularly interested,
you can come and look
at an entire collection,
framed or not framed, Carla would be glad
to help you with that (laughs).
Anyway, there's always been an elaborate
and complicated brotherhood
among Mexican artists
in many genres, literature,
architecture, music, filmmaking,
visual art, but perhaps
none more elaborate
than that of the community
of photographers.
They mentor each other, they
compete with each other,
they collaborate with each other,
they argue with each other,
they gossip about each other,
they marry each other,
but above all, they inspire
and support each other.
So it's fitting that we see the connection
between the artists in this exhibition
as we did with the documentarians.
Among the highlights,
are the historical
photographs by Hugo Brehme.
as Steve mentioned, a
recent gift from Susan Frost
and much appreciated and
a fabulous incredible gift
1800 photographs it's just amazing.
The work of many years of
collecting on Susan's part.
Working in the 19th and
early 20th centuries,
Brehme is responsible for thousands
of pictures depicting
everyday Mexican life.
They've now become valuable
anthropological documents.
He became a Mexican citizen
lived most of his adult life in Mexico.
Just as Mariana Yampolsky did
she became a Mexican citizen
as well and so they're considered
and certainly felt themselves
to be Mexicans to the core.
One of the, let's see we have,
this is one of the Brehme
photos (in foreign language)
in the (in foreign language).
The (in foreign language)
is up above Mexico City
in the mountains.
So great to see that.
And then this is one
from the takeout card,
the (in foreign language).
You can see why these are so valuable
and you can imagine, you know,
you can imagine of costume designer
for a film would really wanna go to school
on these pictures, like I was,
just the everyday aspects
of life that they show.
Mentored Brehme, was Manuel
Alvarez Bravo who brilliantly
and obliquely interpreted
the Mexican aesthetic
for over 70 years.
He's represented here as well.
Bravo is the giant.
He lived to be 100 years old.
I think he died in 2002 maybe,
and I mean, just or maybe it was 2000,
but anyway, 100 years taking pictures
from the time he was in his 20s.
I mean, he knew everyone.
And this is a new photograph
for the collections
(in foreign language) laughing mannequins.
We also have (in foreign
language) the daydream,
(in foreign language) end of market day
we have several of his on display.
Mannequins were a very popular
motif for Hector Garcia
for Nacho Lopez,
for Manuel Alvarez Bravo.
Appropriately, the artist
who studied with him
and who's taken his place
is the premier photographer
in Mexico that would be
in one of the world's best
is Graciela Iturbide, is also in the show.
We have her Bano de Frida,
she was the first photographer invited
into La Casa Azul which
some of you have seen
if you've been to Mexico City.
It was Frida Kahlo's house,
there was a room that was
just closed up over the years,
they call it her bathroom,
but it was actually kind of
more extensive than that.
And it was opened up
after more than 50 years
of just being closed.
I don't know why, I don't know
whether all of a sudden
somebody just said,
"Why don't we open that room up?"
(laughs) But they did
and they found it intact
as it was when it had been closed.
And they invited Graciela to come in
and be the first photographer
to take pictures there.
So there's her bathtub,
you can see her body,
her body cast sort of her
the support, you know,
she was terribly injured
early in life of crutches,
picture was stolen and I believe
that's her prosthetic leg
I think in the bottom.
It was certainly part of what they found
in the banyo.
And it kind of indicates
what high regard Graciela
in what high regard she's held in Mexico,
that she would be the first one
they would think of to ask in.
She did this (in foreign
language) as well.
And and the Cousteau shows
her wonderful enigmatic.
(Connie laughs)
Graciela's pictures are
not like any others,
they're surreal on one level
and very revealing on others
and beautifully composed always.
Also, in turn the works of her acolyte,
(in foreign language) are represented.
This is Coyantes from a,
a group of people in the Garrido,
who are descendants of African Americans,
of Africans and who live
on the beaches there.
She did a series in the
70s in the 80s on those.
Tina Modorti and Edward Weston,
are represented with just a small photo.
It's part of a wonderful trove of pictures
that are connected to to the book called
"Idols Behind Altars" which
is written by Anita Brenner.
She hired Modorti in western
to do the photographs for the book
and so we have alot of the work prints
which are fabulous and rare.
Also, we have Henri Cartier-Bresson.
This is one of his very
famous image of prostitutes
in the Cuauhtemoctzin Street.
This was during his tour
of Mexico in the 30s.
He came back in the 60s
and took other photos,
we also have some of those,
we also have wonderful one of his
that he took in New Mexico.
There's a retrospective that
just opened at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York,
I think 300 photographs
of Cartier-Bresson which
I'm planning on going
to see if I can.
All of these people were
direct influences on
and colleagues of Manuel Alvarez Bravo
and they're all as I mentioned,
included in the show.
Mariana Yampolsky was
more or less the godmother
of the Wittliff Mexican
photography collection.
She first traveled to Mexico in the 1940s
just because of Tina Modorti,
and her perfect prints
are on the gallery walls as well.
This is (in foreign language).
Just you'll have to see it.
Yampolsky's prints are just
some of the most beautiful
I've ever seen wet darkroom
prints, they're astonishing.
Frida Kahlo's father, Guillermo
Kahlo was a contemporary
of Brehme's and an
acquaintance of Bravo's,
he's represented as well,
by his immaculate
architectural photographs.
These essential connections,
both social and artistic exist
between every Mexican
photographer in this exhibition.
And they lend continuity
and strength to the some of the works.
Eduardo Cadava is a wonderful
photographic critic and essayist.
He did a book called, "Words Of Light."
This is on photography
and history on the photography of history.
And he discusses at length,
Walter Benjamin's ideas
about you guessed it,
photography in history.
And as I mentioned, Walter
Benjamin is not the guy
that Larry McMurtry met at
the Dairy Queen in West Texas.
He was in fact, a German Jewish
philosopher, sociologist,
literary critic, translator and essayist.
He was born in 1892, I
think he died about 1940.
But over the last half century,
his work and its influence
has grown dramatically.
He's now considered
one of the most important
20th century thinkers
about modern aesthetic experience.
Here's what Kadava says about Benjamin.
"For Benjamin, the modern
perception of history
is inevitably experienced in a way
that can only be
described as photographic.
For taking a photography's
instantaneity and immediacy.
Its flashlight character,
eliminative powers,
its appearance as a
fragment or temporal shard.
Its ambiguous status as
both an image suspended
in an ever present, and a
concrete artifact of the past.
There can be no thinking
of history that is not
at the same time thinking of photography."
Many of our Mexican most
of our Mexican photographs
are modern and contemporary
but we do have a growing
number of historical images,
including the famous
Aubert post mortem image
of the Fallen Emperor Maximilian,
which is no laughing matter,
but it's those big blue eyes
that just knock me out every day
and the teeth as well,
there are many legends surrounding exactly
how he happened to appear,
as he does in this very
strange photograph.
False teeth he was much damaged,
he was shot by a firing squad.
And they found a uniform for him.
They found somebody's
false teeth and the legend,
(audience laughs)
maybe somebody loaned him, I don't know.
Legend has it that they took
the eyes from the virgin
in the church in (in foreign language)
and put them in Maxmillian's poor face.
I doubt that that's true
but they are unquestionably glass eyes
those are not his eyes.
And there he is.
And they come to, you know,
he had that kind of bifurcating beard,
they sort of went in two
directions, they combed his beard,
it's really quite an
astonishing for 1867 very early,
it's right up on the wall so you can go
and take a close look.
We also have as far as historical images,
the wonderful Brehme works,
the trove of Western Modorti works
and some images from the
story Casasolas archive
that I mentioned earlier.
Here's one of them.
You've probably seen this,
this is the (in foreign language).
And it's only part of a photograph.
I saw the rest of it you know,
the rest of it has somebody
just sort of standing
there looking, just kind of looking
like it was an ordinary day.
But this has such a feeling of urgency,
thank God they cropped it.
It's just wonderful, I mean, its just,
a part of Casasolas
but actually attributed
to Geronimo Hernandez,
and this is from 1910.
There's a famous song,
the (in foreign language)
that some of you probably know.
I could say I'm not gonna now.
(audience laughs)
Not gonna do it.
But here is (laughs) oh no
(audience cheers)
they will sing it, no, can't do it.
Just come to Mirabelle's on Tuesday night
I'll sing that and I'll sing trim boats
if you write the request on a $500 Bill.
(audience laughs)
Bill has never done that
and so I have never ever
sung that song in public.
That was a terrible false that Steve told
about shrimp boats.
Anyway, and here's the famous photograph
I think it's yes, it's anonymous
of Bon Jovi sitting in
the President's chair.
This was taken in Mexico
City at the Palacio Nacional
on December the sixth 1914.
And here and that's of course Zapata
sitting next to him with
his great big sombrero.
Looking elegant and wonderful
as always, being the best
of the best and the revolution
that's my humble opinion.
But anyway, here's a little
anecdote, right behind
the left on the left shoulder
behind Zapata's left shoulder
in the photograph
is a boy named Leo Reynosa.
In 1988, Dennis Darling
who's here tonight,
where are you Dennis?
There he is, he's watching our
closed circuit presentation.
Which you could all be watching,
or some of you could if you prefer
to take one step away from
the actual appearance.
Anyway, Dennis created a
portrait series of veterans
of the Mexican Revolution
and one of the men featured
is the same Leo Reynosa.
There is and there he is.
He was standing right behind Zapata
and there he is, in 1988,
as a survivor of the Mexican Revolution,
isn't that great?
(audience cheers)
I know I love that.
In total, we have five of Dennis's
hand tinted photographs.
They're right behind, you can
see two of them on either end
but as soon as we crank this
up and turn the lights on,
you can come and see all
five, they're really lovely.
I don't have time to show you examples,
and to talk about other very
important images in the show,
but they're photographs
made by Gringos in Mexico.
Both (foreign language) that's us
and other foreigners.
I've already mentioned Brehme,
Cartier-Bresson and Aubert,
but we've collected
many of them are hanging
they interpret the country
from the outsider's point of
view and in wonderful ways.
As Bill has done this for years
and created great
photographs in the process.
Please take note of the works
of Rob Kendrick, Paul Strand.
Keith Carter, C.B. Wyatt,
John Christian, Daddy-O Wade,
who's with us tonight also.
As Daddy-o that terrific
old photograph that he then hand colored
that's the (in foreign language),
yes it's for our it's wonderful.
Bill Wittliff, Jeff Winningham,
Edward Laura Tinker,
Josephine Sacabo and
Debbie Fleming Caffrey.
Also they're great Mexican artists
that I didn't have time to
mention Lola Alvarez Bravo.
I just wanna say their names.
Lazaro Blanco, Manuel
Cario, Faustinus Deraet
who's here with us tonight, Flor Garduño.
Louis Marcus, Raul Ortega,
and Josea Rodriguez.
Let's see, I'm gonna go on just quickly,
Mexico and the South,
they're paying me for this
and so I have to go on just a little bit.
(laughs) And so, I don't wanna
just think I just waltzed
in here and just did it
all off the top of my head.
I had to work on this.
(audience laughs)
Mexico and the Southwestern United States,
perhaps particularly Texas
share one big important myth.
And that's the myth of the cowboy,
the vaquero and his hero's
journey walking cattle
and riding horses and living
by zone personal code.
This particular mythos has been sustained
across both cultures by
movies, television, music,
oral histories, literature,
painting, sculpture,
rodeo and charreada, and
of course, photography.
Bill Wittliff has subscribed
to this myth pretty much
all his life, growing
up in small town Texas,
listening to stories about
the Old West, going to movies,
reading, looking at pictures,
and he's chopped at his share
of cedar, dug a few postal,
probably had some 4-H projects.
So when he came face to
face with cowboying done
like it was in the old days,
he had sense enough to know
what a rare thing it was
to be on around up on a 230,000 acre ranch
with no cross fences.
And he had the good instincts
and enough camera skills
to capture it on film.
In spite of the cedar rubbing
and the hard manual labor
that he knew were part
and parcel of ranch life,
his view of the cowboy was
ellagic and sepia toned
like an old photograph.
And on the Tooley ranch in Quivira,
he had a chance to create a true elegy,
for a way of living doomed to extinction.
And then, (laughs) as luck would have it,
he got to bring it all back
to life when he became
involved with Lonesome dove,
writing the screenplay for
the eight hour miniseries,
serving as executive producer,
which in showbiz terms
is like being the couple that
took the copy in the mob.
And it is we know that.
You might as well have
been Tony on the sopranos.
(audience laughs)
It was absolute power (laughs).
He was on the set every
day taking pictures,
his talent now honed to a fine edge.
And both of vaquero and the
Lonesome Dove photographs tap
into the rich, romantic
archetype of the cowboy
and the trail drive the round
up (in foreign language).
I love the continuity and the parallels
of these two photographic series
that they're both featured
in monographs published
beautifully by UT Press
in the Wittliff Collection series,
both following as they do Bill's bliss,
and his good instincts and talents.
I'm gonna show you just
a few pairs of photos.
This is from the vaquero the chuck wagon.
And you see, similar
to the the chuck wagon
and vaquero had rubber tires,
you couldn't really see them too well.
And this is the camp in vaquero.
And a close but a closer up view
on the Lonesome Dove set.
Here a couple of, thats
the (in foreign language),
the head guy on the trail drive,
and Woodrow F call kind of the head,
head guy on the Lonesome dove trail drive.
This is just sort of made the similarity
of the countryside is
really kind of amazing.
One of the things that I
noticed about the cattle drive
in the vaquero photos was that
the cows always looked like
they were under better control
than they were in the
Lonesome dove (laughs)
where they all always looked like
they just didn't quite know
where they were going (laughs).
But in the vaquero photos
you could tell those guys
they had them, they were hitting them up.
Here's another, yeah here they are
it's the vaquero you can tell
the Lonesome Dove prints or sepia tone.
There's a sort of, you know,
a guess like character.
That's the branding (laughs).
As you see the guy holding the brand slide
it's a little bit tentative,
but you can bet those guys on the left,
we're not at all that way.
One of the young vaqueros
and one of very young
vaqueros, oh my (laughs).
And then there's one of these Jasper
and one of the young vaqueros.
And there's the Remuera
and the stolen horses
when they drove the horses
up from the Rio Grande through
the town of Lonesome Dove.
Still photographs, well, I
know what I was gonna to say,
I mean I've really you know,
I begged Bill to come up
and tell some stories about
his experience on vaquero
but he turned a deaf ear
(laughs) so I was forced
to just come up with whatever I might.
The vaquero photos, as you'll
notice, are a little rougher,
which seems to be perfectly
appropriate to the subject
and the Lonesome Dove
photos appropriately,
are more dramatically heroic.
Although there are plenty of heroes
among the vaqueros as well shown
to be such in the pictures,
I always love to think about
'cause Bill would bring
photographs to these guys.
When he would take, when he would go back,
he would take prints to the fellows
that he had taken pictures of.
And he said inevitably,
they would fold them up.
So these are 11 by 14s (laughs).
Some care I suspect had been
taken in their printing,
and they would fold
them up into very small
into little wallet size packets, you know,
or put them in their back pocket.
And I just, I would love to think
that they've now been unfolded
by the families of these men,
many of them perhaps, I mean,
this is what 35 years ago,
and are maybe hanging in parlors
all over Northern Mexico.
I hope that's true anyway.
But you can bet that they were kept
and so they're in albums,
or they may be still in
somebody's back pocket,
you never know.
Any way, I think that people respond
to these photographs so strongly
because they do come from
a truly authentic place
in the photographer's
heart (in foreign language)
just as the novel Lonesome Dove came
from a deep place in
McMurtry personal history.
Bill took the vaquero
photos way back in the 70s,
they toured the US and
various international venues
for many years.
They're now revived in the
lovely exhibit that you see here,
presented in cooperation
with Humanities Texas,
as Steve mentioned,.
They're extremely
popular across the state,
demonstrating as they do
the give and take between Texas and Mexico
and revealing the genesis
of the cowboy myth
we in Texas holds so dear,
and owe to our neighbor to the south.
Still photographs even
more than moving images
enable an understanding of
essential aspects of history
and society, its aesthetics, its politics,
its dreams, its myths.
The photographs we collect
here are not only documents
but profound testaments to
personal vision and monuments
to great talent.
Being able to exhibit this level
of artistic expression at Texas State,
and at offsite venues
throughout the world,
is the great gift of the
Wittliff Collections,
something students (clears
throat) and members
of the community will
remember for a long time
and on many different
levels of consciousness,
because that's how photographs work.
They're a language that we
all understand (laughs).
(audience cheers)
