Pioneer Photography in Bolivia

photographs made by him, including images of families, caciques, missions and churches, brass and string bands, school children, carnival dancers, bows and arrows, Franciscans, muleteers, and groups of other Indians, such as Tobas and Chorotis.

Nordenskiöld, Erlan (1877-1932). A Swedish explorer, ethnologist, archaeologist, and anthropologist, Nordenskiöld traveled widely in Panama, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia between 1899 and the late 1920s. Among his many publications are Indianer Och Hvita I Nordostra (1911), an account of his 1908-1909 trip through the eastern Bolivian lowlands, Indianlif I Gran Chaco (1910), an account of his 1901-1902 explorations in Bolivia's Gran Chaco. Nordenskiöld, as well as colleagues, including Eric von Rosen, made photographs on the expeditions. The Etnografiska Museum in Göteborg has 1,023 Bolivian photographs, apparently most of them made by Nordenskiöld himself, the Statens Etnografiska Museum in Stockholm holds 135, and the American Geographical Society archives at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee has nine.

Notta, Luis J. de. A leading postcard publisher in Bolivia in the early 1900s, De Notta is perhaps better known as the proprietor of one of La Paz's most fashionable haberdasheries, Luis J. De Notta, which he founded in the 1880s. Borsalino hats, Doctor Jaeger wool underwear, and Walk-Over shoes were among his exclusive offerings. Over its some fifty years in business the shop's trade name varied (De Notta & Cía., La Casa De Notta, and G. De Notta--for Guillermo De Notta, presumably Luis's brother or son), but the surname was always front and center. The imprint "Editores de Notta & Cía." is common on early Bolivian postcards. Images attributed to "De Notta et Cie." appear in La Bolivie (1909), by William van Brabant. Whether De Notta family members were photographer as well as postcard publishers is not known. J. Ricardo Alcarón's Bolivia en el primer centenario de su independencia (1925) carries a short history of La Casa De Notta, extolling it as "preferido siempre por la gente elegante," but makes no mention of the postcard activities.

Nuñez, Clemente. Nuñez was a photographer in Potosí in the early 1930s. His studio was on the Plaza Hospital.