Luisita Escarria

Luisa Escarria (Cali, 1929 – Buenos Aires, 2019) is a Colombian-born photographer who founded with her sister Chela (Cali, 1930) Foto Estudio Luisita. 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. 

Between 1958 and 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 (Buenos Aires, 1989), 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. 

In November 2021, MALBA – Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires featured Temporada fulgor. Foto Estudio Luisita. This exhibition, curated by Sofía Dourron in collaboration with Sol Miraglia, coupled with an accompanying publication, spotlighted the most significant segment of work that the sisters elected to preserve – particularly the photographs capturing the revue theater from 1964 to 1980. 

(Source: Hache Galeria)