09/05/2026
At the edge of two worlds 📸
For several weeks in 1979, Graciela Iturbide and the anthropologist Luis Barjau lived with Seri families. There, Iturbide photographed the historically nomadic Seri people and their relationship to portions of their homeland—the stretch of land dictated as their reservation.
In "Angel of the Desert," Iturbide captures a woman poised at the edge of a vast landscape, framed by the hills behind her. The image suggests not only a physical threshold, but a symbolic one: between ancestral ways of living and a changing modern world, signaled by the boombox she carries. Across this series, Iturbide’s photographs trace transformations—generational differences, adaptations, and the continued protection of tradition.
See more from this intimate and striking series in "Graciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds," on view on Floor 3.
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Graciela Iturbide, "Mujer ángel, Desierto de Sonora, México (Angel Woman, Sonora Desert, Mexico)," 1979; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase through a gift of Jane Reed and the Accessions Committee Fund © Graciela Iturbide