FOTO ESTUDIO LUISITA
Luisa Escarria (Cali, 1929 - Buenos Aires, 2019)
Chela Escarria (Cali, 1930)
Sol Miraglia (Buenos Aires, 1989)
Foto Estudio Luisita is a photographic archive of Argentine show business that has captured, among numerous treasures, the golden age of revue theater.
Foto Estudio Luisita was founded by Luisa Escarria and her sister Chela. Born into a family of photographers, they emigrated from Colombia in 1958, following a period known in Colombian history as "La Violencia". They settled in an apartment on the iconic Corrientes Avenue, which served as both a home and studio until 2009.
From 1958 to 2007, using a Hasselblad camera, Luisita captured revue-theater stars, models, dancers, comedians, singers, musicians, actors, contortionists, and acrobats, as well as tropical bands and drum troupes, both on stage and in the intimacy of the studio. She created some of the most iconic images of Argentine popular culture, photographing hundreds of celebrities. The archive contains more than 40,000 images, including later additions of models, prostitutes, cumbia musicians, children, and dogs.
In 2009, Sol Miraglia, a young photographer and filmmaker who was working at a camera repair shop at the time, crossed paths with Luisita. This encounter marked the beginning of a strong friendship, leading Miraglia to join the photo studio and assume a central role in continuing Luisita's legacy. Since then, she undertook the immense task of revitalizing the material through her artistic practice and preserving the valuable archive of Foto Estudio Luisita, through a meticulous work of inventorying, cataloguing, conditioning, and conserving. This initiative propelled an effort to revalue the existing material, reinterpreting it from a contemporary perspective and making it available to new audiences and generations.
In 2018, Sol Miraglia and Hugo Manso premiered the documentary Foto Estudio Luisita, respectfully and simply portraying the life of the Escarria sisters, memory as an archive of the past, and Luisita's role in a field largely dominated by male photographers.
Foto Estudio Luisita has been featured in the following solo exhibitions: "Temporada fulgor. Foto Estudio Luisita", MALBA, Buenos Aires (2021); "Luz de noche", Fotogalería del Teatro San Martín, Buenos Aires (2019); "Foto Estudio Luisita", MACO, Oaxaca (2019); "Foto Estudio Luisita", Centro Cultural San Martín, Buenos Aires (2016). It has also been included in the following group exhibitions: "Del cielo a casa", MALBA (2023); "Cultura Colibrí", Museo Moderno, Buenos Aires (2023); "Las metamorfosis", MALBA (2021); "As metamorfosis", Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo (2021); "Inventar a la intemperie", Parque de la memoria, Buenos (2021); "Foto Estudio Luisita", FOLA fototeca latinoamericana, Buenos Aires (2016).
Foto Estudio Luisita is part of the MALBA collection, as well as other important private collections.
