The University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography has received a $255,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. The grant will fund a substantial exhibition in fall 2023 of Bernal’s work. With the grant, the Center for Creative Photography aims to raise awareness of the significant Chicanx photographer, promote dialogue and reinvigorate recognition of his photographs.
The Center for Creative Photography selected curator and writer Elizabeth Ferrer as the exhibition’s guest curator, says Rebecca Senf, the CCP chief curator. Ferrer is the author of the 2021 “Latinx Photography in the United States: A Visual History,” the first survey of Latin American photography.
“Perhaps the first Chicanx individual to envision photography as an art form is Louis Carlos Bernal, … who may rightly be called the father of Chicanx photograph,” Ferrer says.
Louis Carlos Bernal, El Gato