The Museum of Photographic Arts at The San Diego Museum of Art is opening a solo exhibition of work by Graciela Iturbide, one of Latin America’s best-known living photographers, and it’s a rare opportunity to see this much of her work in one place.

The exhibition features approximately 150 photographs spanning more than 50 years of her career, including some of her most iconic images.

If you’ve been following contemporary photography at all, Iturbide’s name has come up – her poetic eye and deeply immersive approach to documenting Mexico’s Indigenous communities and cultures have made her internationally recognized.

Themes Spanning Decades and Continents

The exhibition explores themes including Indigenous communities in Mexico, rituals of celebration and death, travels abroad to India, Italy, and the United States, botanical gardens, landscapes and objects, and self-portraits.

One particularly intimate section shows Iturbide’s photographs of Frida Kahlo’s bathroom, which was sealed following Kahlo’s death and opened 50 years later for Iturbide to photograph. It’s a glimpse into Kahlo’s life that few people have seen, and it adds another dimension to the exhibition’s exploration of Mexican cultural identity.

A Career Built on Immersion and Sensitivity

Iturbide began her career in the late 1960s while studying filmmaking in Mexico City, working with legendary photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Like Álvarez Bravo, she focused on capturing Mexico’s rich interweaving of cultures, but she brought her own personal sense of metaphor and symbolism infused with dreams and mortality.

She’s deeply immersed herself in Mexico’s Indigenous communities, often highlighting women’s experiences and bringing a more balanced and sensitive portrayal to marginalized groups.

The early decades of her work centered on Latin American people and customs, and since the 1980s, she’s expanded her travels and focused increasingly on objects and landscapes while creating starker, more abstract compositions.

Internationally Recognized and Collected

Iturbide is the 2025 recipient of the internationally prestigious Princess of the Asturias Award for the Arts, along with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Hasselblad Foundation Photography Award, and the Lucie Award for Achievement in Fine Art, among many others.

Her works are in the permanent collections of museums around the world, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, LACMA, MoMA, and The San Diego Museum of Art. She lives and works in Coyoacán, Mexico City.

Exhibition Details and Programming

The exhibition was organized by Fundación Mapfre and was recently on view at The International Center of Photography in New York. San Diego’s presentation also includes works by Iturbide from the SDMA collection, and after its run here, the exhibition will travel to SFMOMA.

The exhibition is complemented by art-making workshops and other community programming, and the most comprehensive survey to date on Iturbide’s work will be available at the MOPA@SDMA Store and online.

See you there!

Roxana Velásquez, Maruja Baldwin Executive Director and CEO of The San Diego Museum of Art, says she’s long admired Iturbide’s work from her time as executive director of national museums in Mexico City, and she’s especially honored to be sharing it in San Diego.

This is one of those exhibitions worth making time for.

📆 February 14 – June 7, 2026
📍 1649 El Prado, San Diego
🎟️ Get your tickets here
ℹ️ More info here

See you there, San Diego!