Fixing the Boundaries: Juan Rulfo - Writer and Photographer¹

Of the 68 years of Juan Rulfo’s life, approximately 30 of them were dedicated to photography. He cultivated both passions, arts or professions in parallel, primarily in the 1950s, taking photographs alongside his writing of the stories that would come to form El Llano en llamas (1953) and the novel Pedro Paramo (1955). In this way, photography is a central element of Rulfo’s creative output and scrutiny of his legacy in this regard is necessary for a full appreciation of his contribution. Rulfo published his images in books, magazines, cultural supplements and pamphlets between 1949 and 1977. In 1960 he put together his first exhibition at the Casa de la Cultura in Guadalajara, and later, on the occasion of the celebration of his work at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1980, around a hundred of his photographs were placed on display.