Antonio Reynoso

Antonio Reynoso (1916–1996) was a pioneering Mexican photographer and cinematographer born in Toluca. From 1936 to 1940, he studied painting with Manuel Rodríguez Lozano at the Academia de San Carlos before shifting his focus to photography under the tutelage of Manuel Álvarez Bravo from 1940 to 1943 at the same institution.

His early work received international attention in 1943 when he exhibited six photographs—including images depicting Día de Muertos, a tomb, a portrait of Nefero, a girl plucking birds, indigenous people in a park, and scenes titled Alegría and Muerte en la vecindad—in the “Mexican Art Today” exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This exposure was further bolstered in 1944 when he participated in exhibitions at both the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Art.

In 1950, his film “Una ventana a la vida”—directed by Manuel Rodríguez Lozano with a script by Rodolfo Usigli—was shown in Paris, although the film has since been lost. Throughout the 1960s, Reynoso continued to expand his artistic reach. He participated in the “Lágrimas y Risas” exhibition at the Centro Israelita de México, directed the short film “El Despojo” (with a screenplay by Juan Rulfo and cinematography by Rafael Corkidi), and contributed as a cinematographer to several projects. These included working on “La Creación artística. José Luis Cuevas” (1964) and “Tajimara” (1965), both directed by Juan José Gurrola; “Fando y Lis” (1967) by Alejandro Jodorowsky; and “A Hole in the Fog” (1967) by Archibaldo Burns. In 1968, he was appointed head of cameras for the filming of the XIX Olympic Games in Mexico.