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Last modified on Wed 11 Jan 2023 15.06 GMT
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Calle Corrientes desde Reconquista, Buenos Aires, 1936Buenos Aires photographer Horacio Coppola has always experimented with the contrasts of light and shadow. These photographs, taken in the 1930s, are part of an exhibition, Nocturnos, in which night, gloom or projected shadow have a leading role. Nocturnos is showing at the Galería Jorge Mara – La Ruche in Buenos Aires until 28 February. All photographs: Horacio Coppola
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Corrientes esquina Uruguay, Buenos Aires, 1936Gallery owner Jorge Mara was a friend of Coppola’s. He said: ‘Coppola’s nocturnal urban landscapes are comparable (in ambition and quality) to those of other famous photographers, cultivators of night photography, from the early decades of the 20th century’
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Baile de Carnaval, Teatro Colon II, Buenos Aires, 1936Jorge Mara: ‘In ancient art, before the 17th century, for technical or symbolic reasons, such night scenes were not frequent. In baroque painting, Caravaggio and his followers adopted methods of violent light/shadow contrasts in order to accentuate drama. Rembrandt, Velázquez, Vermeer and other painters masterfully used these contrasts. In the 18th and 19th centuries there were artists who continued to innovate in the use of light/shadow antagonism in visual arts’
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Calle California, Barrio de la Boca, Buenos Aires, 1931Horacio Coppola: ‘I was born on 31 July, 1906, in my parents’ bedroom, on the 2nd floor of a house, designed and run by my father. I began my life as the 10th member in the bosom of a family of adults. At the same time I learned to walk and talk, listen to music, grow plants and cut flowers, be a craftsman in the widest and most diverse handling of instruments, including the camera, raise and live with birds and the most varied kinds of animals, read and write and manage newspapers and books and know the existence of many languages’
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Calle Corrientes, Buenos Aires, 1936It is with the Hungarian–French photographer Brassaï that Coppola has the greatest affinity. The likeness of their images is often striking. In the 1930s, when Brassaï took most of his Parisian photos, it is unlikely that the Argentine would have been aware of Brassaï’s work. You can see a gallery of Brassaï’s work here
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Teatro Opera, 1936Coppola lived in Berlin and participated in the Bauhaus until it closed in 1933. There was, presumably, no point of contact between he and Brassaï. But there are common themes in modern photography that both photographers adopted and explored
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Mateo y su Victoria, Buenos Aires, 1931From the beginning of his career, Coppola experimented with the contrasts of light and shade in his images. A large part of his photographic work is marked by the use of shadows, whether environmental or punctual
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Buenos Aires, 1936Coppola’s best known work is his famed photographic series, called simply Buenos Aires 1936
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Av. Corrientes al 3000, Buenos Aires, 1936‘Sometimes, things are there. You just have to know how to look,’ Coppola once said
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Campana, Buenos Aires, 1931In the early 1930s, Coppola attended photography courses by the famous teacher Walter Peterhans at the Bauhaus, where Peterhans ran the photography department
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Obelisco, Buenos Aires, 1936At Bauhaus, Coppola met the German photographer Grete Stern, also a pupil of Peterhans. The two young photographers soon formed a couple, and in 1933, when the Bauhaus closed its doors (due to Hitler’s rise to power), they left for London
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San Jose esquina Victoria, Buenos Aires, 1936In 1935 Coppola and Stern got married and left Europe. They travelled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they settled permanently. Shortly after their arrival in Buenos Aires, they jointly mounted an exhibition of their work on the premises of the prestigious literary magazine Sur. It is considered the advent of modern photography in Argentina
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Calle Florida, Buenos Aires, 1936Coppola and Stern became known as founders of modern Latin American photography
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Nocturno, Avenida Costanera, Buenos Aires, 1936These images established Coppola’s pre-eminence in the photographic scene of his country as well as in the rest of the continent
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