page_title: Héctor García Cobo
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Héctor García Cobo / Life
caption_attribution_description: Español: Héctor García como fotógrafo
context_page_description: Hector Garcia Cobo was a Mexican photographer and photojournalist who had a sixty-year career chronicling Mexico's social classes, Mexico City and various events of the 20th century, such as the 1968 student uprising. He was born poor but discovered photography in his teens and early 20s, deciding to study it seriously after his attempt to photograph the death of a coworker failed. He was sent to the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas by magazine director Edmundo Valdés who recognized García's talent. Most of García's career was related to photojournalism, working with publications both inside and outside of Mexico. However, a substantial amount of his work had more artistic and critical qualities. Many of these were exhibited in galleries and museums, with sixty five individual exhibitions during his lifetime. This not only included portraits of artists and intellectuals but also portraits of common and poor people. He was also the first photojournalist to explicitly criticize Mexico's elite, either making fun of them or contrasting them to the very poor.
context_section_description: Héctor García Cobos was born on August 23, 1923 in Mexico City to Amparo Cobo Soberanes from the State of Mexico and Ramiro García do Porto from Portugal. He grew up in the poor and dangerous Candelaria de los Patos neighborhood in a house that has since been replaced by apartment buildings. His family was extremely poor. He received little formal education as a youth, with his mother teaching him how to read. As a child, he much preferred to wander the streets of his neighborhood, and even beyond to meet and talk to people. This led to his mother calling him “pata de perro” (lit. dog's foot), which later became the title of his autobiography. His propensity to escape from the house even drove his mother to tie him to the bed, but he said that he always found a way to escape. As a young child he went as far as the air field that was in the Balbuena section of the city, selling gum to the aviators. He was adopted as a “mascot” and even given a ride in one of the planes when he was only six. At age seven, he hitchhiked his way to Veracruz .
  In 1937, when he was fourteen, he was sent to a juvenile correctional facility in Tlalpan, where he remained until he was eighteen. Here, he received his first camera, a gift from one of the facility's directors.
  In 1942 he headed to the United States in search of work. On the way, he had to sell his shoes in order to eat, crossing the border barefoot. He then stowed away on a train to head to Washington, D.C. In the United States he worked in Maryland, New York, Philadelphia and Washington on rail lines, taking pictures as a hobby.  One of his coworkers was run over by a train, and Garcia took pictures of the body, attracted to the sight of it on the snow. However, the pictures did not come out and because of this disappointment, he decided to study photography seriously. He remained in the United States until he was deported in 1945.
  When he returned to Mexico, he began to work at Celuloide magazine as a laborer. The magazine was directed by storyteller and journalist Edmundo Valdés, who recognized García's talent and sent him to study at the Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas. There García studied along with fellow photographer Nacho López under Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Gabriel Figueroa, both still photography and movie making. Garcia is quoted as saying that Alvarez Bravo left him with “more than just the basics of the discipline but rather a concept of life, a path with limitless possibilities. I had wings but he taught me to fly.” .
  During his career, he made friends with artists and intellectuals such as Salvador Novo, Diego Rivera, Fernando Benítez, Frida Kahlo, Octavio Paz, Alberto Gironella, Carlos Monsiváis and José Luis Cuevas along with entertainment stars such as Pedro Infante, María Félix, Tin Tan and Tongolele . However, he said that he never considered himself as an artist or intellectual. He never had or wanted his own studio with fixed lights and screens.
  In 1954, he married María Sánchez who was also a photographer. The couple had three children, Yuri, Amparo and Héctor García Sánchez who is also a photographer. His wife said that he once mentioned that he wanted to be buried in a cemetery he saw in Xochimilco, with a window on the casket so he can continue watching Mexico City. He died of cardiac arrest at his home on June 2. 2012.
caption: Hector Garcia as a young man
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "518", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "649"}