Casasola, Agustín-Víctor (1874-1938), Mexican photographer, active initially as a portraitist and photo-reporter in Mexico City, and in 1911 founding president of Mexico's first press photographers' association. But decisively important was the 1910 outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, of which the historically minded Casasola became a key chronicler. The agency he started in 1913—which also employed his sons Gustavo and Ismael—supplied pictures to newspapers in Mexico and North America, and he himself, using a large-format plate camera, created thousands of images ranging from battles and political events to everyday scenes on streets, railway stations, and in the countryside. He also photographed the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata dead and alive. A selection of these pictures appeared in Album histórico gráfico (1921), and in later publications by Casasola's sons. After the revolution ended, c. 1920, he did documentary work at various prisons and mental institutions. An extensive Casasola archive is held at the Hidalgo National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) at Pachuca, Mexico.
— Robin Lenman
Bibliography
- Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond. Photographs by Agustín-Víctor Casasola 1900-1940, introd. P. Hamill (2003)
