The history of Latin American photography lost one of its most thoughtful proponents last November with the death of Miguel Angel Cuarterolo, the victim of a brain aneurism at age 51. Known to his foreign colleagues as “Don Mac,” Cuarterolo was a pioneer in his field and also a warm and supportive friend. Most previous scholars had used photographs exclusively as background illustrations, but Cuarterolo helped give his subject a new and more sophisticated direction. He examined photos not just to understand their historical content but to discover the technique, the subtlety, and the artist within them. The fact that the photographer might be long dead meant nothing: he or she could still be understood through the photos.
Not surprisingly, Cuarterolo was himself a professional photographer. Born in Buenos Aires, he launched his freelance career in the 1970s, publishing in such popular magazines as Esquiú, Siete Días, and...
