Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942. She studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the Department of Cinema (1969-72) and worked as assistant to photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1970- 71). She has been exhibited in many single artist and group shows, but the following are among the most significant: Graciela Iturbide: Images of the Spirit (Retrospective, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1997-98); Graciela Iturbide: La forma y la memoria (Retrospective, Monterrey Museum of Contemporary Art, 1996); En el nombre del padre (Galería Juan Martín, Mexico City; Galería Foto Óptica, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Museo de Arte Moderno, Río de Janeiro, Brazil, 1993); External Encounters, Internal Imaginings: The Photographs of Graciela Iturbide (Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 1990); Juchitán pueblo de nube / Juchitán, Cloud Village (Toured Argentina, England, Japan, 1987-1998); Eyes to Fly With: Portraits, Self-Portraits and other photographs (Wittliff Gallery Series, UT Press, 2006). Among the many honors she has received are the following: Premio de Adquisición in the First Photography Biennial, Mexico City, 1980; W. Eugene Smith Award, 1987-88; Guggenheim Fellowship Award (1988); the Gran Prix Mois, 1988; The Hugo Erfurth Award, 1989; the Hokkaido Prize, 1990; the Prix Rencontres Photographiques, 1991.
From Cuadernos de Viaje catalog, 1999.

Graciela Iturbide is considered to be among the most gifted photographers ever to come out of Mexico. She has an international following, and is represented in the U.S. by a number of presigious commercial galleries. The Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection is fortunate to house the largest collection of her original prints in this country. She lives and works primarily in
Mexico, but has recently undertaken photographing journeys to the southern United States and to India. She has two grown sons--one an architect, one a composer; her only daughter died many years ago in childhood. Earlier in her life she acted in an independent film made by a friend and was nominated for the Mexican equivalent of an Oscar. She counts among her friends a great number of the most illustrious of the artistic community in Mexico.