Mariana Yampolsky
Elena Poniatowska



Love is a detonator. As a woman who discovers her beloved, Mariana Yampolsky gazes over the land, her 
arms outstreched. From a very early age, she begins her weaving: a lovin web of ideas and convictions.

She prefers anonymity, working for a cause, disappering behind her work.

During the 40’s, in the Taller de Gráfica Popular, ideals leave their imprint on large sheets of onionskin. 
The ink prints them onto the plate, just as her photograph miracously emerges in the developing tray. With
a single arm, José Sánchez works the press.

Mariana plows furrows in the earth. She brings to mind those peasants in Millet’s Ángelus, stooping over 
bebeath the final rays of the afternoon sun, giving thanks for all that their recieve. This sense of gratitude 
runs through her work, begun fifty years ago.

The amazament that the vegetation, the people and the popular art of Mexico, first produced in Mariana has 
never waned. It descends like benevolent raindrops into her eyes. A spoiled, solitary, only child, Mariana 
lived in the country, in the shade of fruit trees. A lush hedge of lilacs surrounded the farm. Mariana would 
disappear among their branches where no one could find her. It was her personal jungle, her very own world. 
Her greatest joy was to spot an enormous tree from her hideway and spen hours reading in it, with no one 
bothering her. She would also ride her bicycle, alone again, to the outskirts of town, discovering unknown 
paths and abandoned trails. That attraction to exploring unexpected trails remains strong and inspires 
her in her travels. I have sometimes followed  her cross-country through towering cornfields, beneath 
whipping, scorching winds, her straw hat on, cameras resting on her hip, moving forward like a small 
tractor with the tenacity of her strong hiker’s legs.

Her father, Oscar Yampolsky, was sculptor, painter and woodworker. He had a two-story workshop 
behind the house, and there he would make his own furniture and frames for his paintings. Little Mariana 
slept in a cradle and later on a bed carved by his father. One Christmas, when Mariana was seven, she was 
led up to the second floor and wide-eyed, discovereda dollhouse taller than herself, set up on a platform. 
Open on both sides, it had a roof and tile eaves. All the small furniture in the various rooms had been made 
by her father. The hose had electric lighting, the lamps could be switched on and of, and the toilets, sinks 
and tubs –all of them antiques- had hot running water to the little girl’s delight. The same was the true for 
the kitchen, with its real stove and miniature oven. The inhabitants of the hose were porcelain dolls sent by 
her German grandmother. Each one had several outfits sewn and knitted by Grossmutter.

Mariana was never as drawn to playing with the dolls as she was building furniture with leaves and sticks 
on which to seat them. She recalls having knitted a hammock that she hung in the dollhouse. The 
fascination with putting the prettiest doll to bed like a sleeping beauty lasted a few days, but she soon 
took leave of the closed world of the dollhouse and returned to her books and leafy branches of the lilacs.

One afternoon, Hedwig Yampolsky, showed me a photograph of Mariana as a child: her head a mass 
of curls, her smile the very same as today –the trusting, dazzled expression, a prelude to the magic 
she was to experience later, living in Mexico, a country of endless metamorphosis. 

-She looks so much like Shirley Temple!
Hedwig smiled. Her greatest pride, her greatest anguish was her daughter Mariana.
The Yampolsky family had no neighbors. Like many, they lived far from others, but shared this isolated 
existence with Mariana’s paternal grandparents. The only chance she had to go out was to climb up
into the wagon and go with her grandfather on his errands to dispose of the garbage and bring back
manure. During this outings, he would tell her about his childhood and youth, fascinating her with how he 
had escaped on horseback from a pack of wolves chasing him through the snow. Years later, Mariana
relived the episode when she read Gorki, and she began to wonder. Now she suspects that perhaps her 
grandfather had read the adventures that thrilled her so. Visiting her grandfather in the afternoon was 
always a party. He served her tea in a glass and bread with cherry jam whole cherries that Grandmother
Debora macerated year after year.

The most important person was her mother Hedwig, who was stricter than her father, Mariana had to 
earn her approval, which was not easy. Clearly, Hedwig wanted to mitigate the paternal indulgence. 
During the Depression of the thirties, the family suffered through shortages of food and money. Mariana 
remembers sitting down at the table and looking up to see that neither Hedwig nor Oscar had anything 
on their plates. This scarred her forever; to this day she is distressed by the thought that there may 
not be enough food to go around.

I met Mariana in 1957, and her mother Hedwig invited me to eat at their house on Dinamarca Street 
and later at the one on Tíber. She filled the plates to the brim, preparing for their future, or possibly for 
future starwars. She offered us delicious dishes that were the product of her imaginative and generous 
hands. Hers was the first apple Strudel I evertasted (and I have never had another one like it), 
and she made a porcupine-like cake with black chocolate pieces sticking out of it. At Christmas, a 
basket of Hedwig Yampolsky’s ginger, chocolate, pecan, almond and raisin cookies was always 
delivered to my house. Ever since then, I have associated the smell of baked goods with little Mariana.

After six years of loneliness (childhood without siblings is often so), starting school was a simulating 
experience. Mariana loved the contact with children whose lives were so different from her own. 
Throughout the next six years, Mariana was the first in her class, the best pupil. This gave her a lot of 
security. When she left elementary school, the social pressure was overwhelming; success with boys, 
dressing well and attending parties were more important than being a good student. The contrast was 
a shock.
 
Her father suggested entering a program for outstanding youngsters not yet old enough to attend the 
university. It turned out to be huge relief for Mariana to be accepted and to study with adults who had 
goals that went beyond being cheerleaders for the winning team.
When she finished her studies at Chicago University, her father died. Hedwig decided to move to 
New York. 
Mariana came to Mexico because she had heard a talk at the University, given by two printmakers, 
about the social commitment of the members of the members of the Taller de Gráfica Popular, and 
she instantly decided that that was what she wanted.

She came to Mexico.
On her first flight, during the middle of the war, in 1944, Mariana had to get off the plane in  Texas 
to make room for the soldiers. It took her two days to make the trip. In Mexico, she lived at the home 
of a Swiss journalist and his wife, Heidegger, on Londres street, in what is now the Zona Rosa. Justino 
Fernández gave her the address of the workshop on Regina Street, and the next day, Mariana –who 
did not speak a word of Spanish–was standing outside the front door of a run down building. The 
printer José Sánchez opened it, and the first thing she saw was the enormous French printing press 
that dated back to the Paris Commune. José told her that the members of the workshop showed up 
in the afternoon and that she should return at six. Mariana remembers the face of Leopoldo Méndez
–“so beautiful” –and that of his brother Pablo O’Higgins. They very cordially invited her to etch 
stones, make lithographs and join the workshop. Another very handsome young man of her age, 
Albert Beltrán, welcomed her with open arms and offered his support. After a few months, she 
knew that Mexico was going to be her country and her friends at the workshop, her family.

The architect Hannes Meyer asked Mariana to photographs the members of the workshop for his 
book TGP México (Twelve Years of the Taller de Gráfica Popular). She shot them one by 
one with a Rolleycord, developed the negatives, and when she saw her photographs published she 
decided she wanted to learn more about photography, to control it and print the image herself. Her 
friends at the workshop suggested she take classes at San Carlos with Lola Álvarez Bravo. Looking 
back, it was a turningpoint in her career. Little by little, photography replaced drawing and etching. 
Lola was quite unique teacher, mostly self-taught and she instructed her student to pay more 
attention to the object or person being photographed than the technique.
This had its drawbacks, since Mariana has to this very little interest in the mechanical aspect of 
photography. She happily lets Alicia Ahumada, a magician in the darkroom, developed her negatives.
Alicia does wonders; she is the best printer in thecountry.

Lola Álvarez Bravo was tireless and her self-assurance admirable. She never refused to do a job, 
no matter how insignificant it was. “I can say that her legacy was her dedication to the work”.
 
It became an obsession for Mariana to travel to many corners of the country to shoot people, 
landscapes, houses, festivitiesand everything that the human hand touches.

For, her photography is not really a job, but a joy. She wonders, however, what good so much
photography is and at time believes it us a sickness. Her shots of graffiti are outstanding. 
Mariana’s zest for life renews her and keeps her work up to date and contemporary.

Other denounce, expose. Mariana assumes solitude, the passage of time, the strength and 
steadfastness of humblest men and women of Mexico, the total bareness of the huts she 
enters, their helplessness, Mazahua Indians greet her beneath the 10 a.m. sun. 
-Would you like some coffee?  At least a tortilla with salt? A cup of cool water?

The children gather around her, not only intrigued by the camera but also because they 
recognize her. Mariana treats them with respect and affection. They return the trust.
Her entire works is based on a single and original idea.

If you examine her nearly sixty thousand negatives, the result of many years of work, nothing 
is out of context. More than any other photographers, Mariana Yampolsky has approached the 
vital force that characterizes our country, its powerful zeal for survival, the colossal feat of 
reaching nightfall. “And yet I am here” her photographs seem to say. They are of men, women 
and children standing in front of a background of poverty. And of beauty.
   
Beauty is a canon of her entire oeuvre.
Looking at her photographs, one asks what is Mexico, why some are, and others are not, 
why the hunger, why the disinterest?  Mariana gives a single answer: a dignified one. Her rigor
 is absolute. She makes no concessions. She is never sentimental. Having worked as a 
teacher, she knows how to teach, and while she used to instruct with his words, she now 
teaches visually. She does it starting from her own cultural background, which is 
considerable. If anyone has been exposed to painting throughout her lifetime, Mariana 
certainly has. If anyone knows how to capture the beauty of an object and do it justice, 
if anyone knows to recognize a work of art, Mariana Yampolsky certainly does.
             

What happens to women who devote themselves to reflecting life? Marina only considers 
having lived what she has photographed. How many negatives are still inside Mariana? Her 
images are never arbitrary. She never shoots just to shoot. She never takes a picture of a 
human being at his worst moment. Not of even a dog. The turkey looking in the mirror is a 
Narcissus –he owns the hacienda. Mariana never offends. She is not hurried or rushed (I get 
nervous in her VW bug because it creeps forward at two kilometers an hour). She never 
seeks out the decisive moment. For her, taking a photograph is an inward journey. She 
leaves the city on weekends or sometimes for weeks at a time, on a pilgrimage that could 
be described as fervent. The most remote villages, the most difficult to reach, respond to her. 
Invigorated by what she sees and lives, roll after roll end up in her photographer’s pack. She 
does not allow anyone to carry her equipment, so off she goes, the solitary, obsessive child, 
plowing her black and white furrow, leaving her footprints on our future codices.

Possessed like Rulfo, Mariana Yampolsky senses the subjects of her photographs even 
before seeing them. Her vision becomes her point of view, her storehouse of ideas, the way 
in which she faces life. Strict with herself, after a long laborious journey, she has the enormous 
satisfaction of having dedicated her life to what she loves the most: Mexico and its people. 
Mariana Yampolsky has demanded absolute truth from herself. She now offers it to us. A 
display of the country and the human family, and to our surprise, the story is dizzying.


Mexico City, December 1998.