Feature Articles


September Issue 1999

Asheville Art Museum Presents Gertrude Blom: Bearing Witness

The Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC, is proud to present this special exhibition of photographs by Gertrude Blom (1901-1993), which will be on view through Oct. 17, 1999. Through her photographs Blom recorded the Lacandones-the native people of the Lacandon region-and the Lacandon Rain Forest in the Chiapas region of Mexico. San Cristóbal de las Casas in the state of Chiapas is one of Asheville's Sister Cities.

Eugene Smith, one of this century's best-known documentary photographers coined the term "concerned photographer" to describe photographers who aspire to go beyond the recording events and ultimately intend for their photographs to serve as a catalyst for change. While Blom never saw herself as a photographer, her photography and passionate commitment to the people of Chiapas place her firmly in the tradition of the concerned photographer.

Gertrude (Trudi) Blom grew up in the Canton of Berne in the Swiss Alps, the daughter of a Protestant minister. She earned a degree in horticulture. Later, she became a political activist and was jailed in fascist Italy and a Nazi detention camp in France at the outset of World War II.

Blom left Europe for Mexico in 1940 prepared to leave her activist career behind. Ironically, in Mexico she discovered the cause that would preoccupy her for the rest of her life: the Lacandones and the Lacandon Rain Forest. In 1943, she accompanied a government expedition into the Lacandon Rain Forest where she first encountered the Lacandones. Trudi and her husband Frans Blom bought a large property in San Cristóbal de Las Casas in 1950 where they founded the cultural and scientific center known as Na Bolom.

Although Trudi Blom never considered herself a photographer, she created thousands of photographs, one of the great legacies of documentary photography. Most of these photographs bear witness to her long, personal relationship with the Lacandones. Blom developed loyal friendships among the Lacandones and was one of the most ardent advocates for their way of life.

In addition to her concern for the native population, Blom also fought to save the rain forest. The scorched, barren landscapes in many of her photos are a harsh indictment of the tragic destruction of the Lacandon Rain Forest.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the museum at 828/253-3227.

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