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Women, Gender Identities, and “Surrogate Photography” in 19th Century Spain
No full textDr. Stéphany Onfray, Independent Photography Researcher, Spain
Women, Gender Identities, and “Surrogate Photography” in 19th Century Spain
From an early period, photography stood out in popular culture as a democratic tool, an ally of modernity, capable of providing new means of representation to the humblest strata of the population. However, the importance that the medium had in shaping gender roles in the 19th century has been much less frequently emphasized.
Photography blurred the boundaries between the sexes, leading to the acquisition of new capacities for action for women. Whether in front of or behind the camera, women redefined their place in the world and transformed into protagonists. They gained access to a means of expression whose reach was not limited to the private sphere, but became a catalyst for a new feminine subjectivity, increasingly oriented towards the construction of contemporary society.
Nevertheless, the benefits of the “enthusiasm” that women felt for photography were also important for the medium’s own expansion. To continue overlooking the fundamental role they played in its technical, social, cultural, and artistic development is to leave aside one of the most relevant aspects of its history, as both elements reflect an analogous struggle against a constantly changing world, especially concerned with the search for a new social order.
In this communication, we propose to detail and illustrate the extent of the relationship that existed between women and photography in the second half of 19th century Spain, offering another view of the beginnings of a connection that they maintained with the camera, not so much as photographers, but as subjects, collectors, or simple consumers.
Through the analysis of the overall visual culture of the time, and expanding this aspect to other European nations, we will seek to introduce an intermediate figure between the model, considered as a mere object dependent on the photographer’s desires, and the female photographer, responsible for all technical control. We will see how, by shaping their own image through what we called a “surrogate representation” (with the involvement of a third party), women challenged conventions and began to be part of an artistic and social dialogue that redefined gender boundaries.
Doctor in Art History from the Complutense University of Madrid, Stéphany Onfray is dedicated to photographic research. Her academic career, carried out between France and Spain, culminated in a thesis on Women and Photography in 19th Century Spain , pending publication by the publishing house Cátedra (March 2025). She focuses on exploring the complex relationship that women established with the photographic image—whether as photographers, collectors, or subjects—analyzing the strategies they employed to turn an ideological and political medium into an expressive and personal window. Since 2015, Stéphany Onfray has contributed to the academic field with several publications on the History of Photography. She has also participated as a lecturer in numerous national and international conferences and has collaborated with Spanish and French institutions
Early Female Daguerreotypists in Spain: Madame Fritz
No full textDr. María de los Santos García-Felguera, retired Professor, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
Early Female Daguerreotypists in Spain: Madame Fritz
Carrying out research about the first women photographers (the daguerreotypists) in Spain is as difficult as in any other country. However, there are also some opportunities and pleasant surprises along the way.
Most of these women we only know through advertisements in the press and learn about only by names: Madame Valpéry, Senges, Sanz, Ayala, and Fritz, for example. In some cases, we are lucky enough to find small mentions in newspapers, usually related to another subject (not photography), as is the case of Madame Senges (also a balloonist), Sanz (a dentist), or Ayala (a seller of cosmetics). At the best of the times, we know about them through official documents (municipal or state papers). But non-permanent residents add to the difficulty of recovering their histories. Often, we know about them, only by chance, thanks to the preservation of some of their work.
In 2021, two portraits made by Madame Fritz came to light in a private collection in Barcelona. Fritz is particularly interesting for our purposes, because she travelled through Spain and Portugal between 1843 and 1846 taking daguerreotype portraits and reproducing works of art.
The documentation preserved in different countries (in Europe and Asia) has allowed us to deepen our research into Fritz’s life from her origins in France as part of a book-making family, her marriage in a printer\u27s family, her move to Switzerland, her divorce and her independent business in Paris, her travels through Spain and Portugal with the daguerreotype camera, and how life took her to Hong-Kong, the Philippines, and back to France. Through the adventures of Madame Fritz, we can see what these women were like: independent, determined, and ready to move from one country to another (before the railways), practising a new profession that they helped to establish - a profession that later forgot their names and their work.
María de los Santos García-Felguera holds a PhD in Art History (Complutense University, Madrid) and has been a Professor of History of Photography and History of Art (Complutense University of Madrid and Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona) until 2014. During these years, she taught many students, and she is pleased to say that some of them are speaking here today.
She has authored several books and articles examining lives and works of 19th-century photographers in Spain, both women and men. Additionally, she has participated as a speaker in numerous conferences and curated exhibitions.
Part of her research focuses on women photographers who worked in Spain, mainly during the 19th century, but also spanning from the first daguerreotypists (in the 1840s) to the photojournalists (as well as nurses, teachers, and others) who came to Spain during the Civil War and took photographs during their stay. Most of the photographers she has studied were previously unknown. Her interest lies in both professional and amateur women, regardless of their origin (Spain or elsewhere), and the reasons that brought them to Spain to work
Delta-modular matroids
Get PDFDelta-modular matrices are integer matrices that arise in the theory of integer programming. Matroids are discrete structures that encode the combinatorics of linear independence. We show how matroids were used to nd an upper bound on the maximum number of columns of a rank-r Delta-modular matrix. We assume no knowledge of matroid theory. This is joint work with Joseph Paat, Ingo Stallknecht, and Luze Xu
