Buenos Aires butcher. Buenos Aires. Circa 1901.

Gelatin silver print toned in sepia -measures: 17 x 22 cm / 6.7 x 8.66 in-, mounted on an old heavyweight cardboard. Work in very good condition. It is displayed framed.

Impeccable record that Olds himself called "Ambulante Butcher" and whose central character is a new immigrant who offers various cuts of beef and even the classic barbecue sausages in his small handcart. The grazing light of the sun silhouettes this humble worker that contrasts with the opulent construction of a Buenos Aires house.

Of the professional photographers living in the thriving city of Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 20th century, few reached the talent of the American Harry Grant Olds (Sandusky. 1869 - Buenos Aires. 1943). With just over 30 years and an excellent training in the field of photography, he decided to emigrate to the distant "South America" ​​to continue exercising his profession with better economic prospects.

In a first stage he developed his photographic art in the Chilean city of Valparaíso, as a qualified employee of the Canadian Hobder Heffer, but finally he decided to become independent and around 1900 he settled permanently in Buenos Aires, at that time the largest commercial plaza in Argentina and with more than a one hundred photographic studios focused on the most profitable segment of the business, social portraiture.

His poor command of the Castilian language and a fine commercial sense definitely turn him to an interesting facet, the register of urban and rural views, and that of popular types and customs. Very soon he became the official photographer for the powerful Argentine Rural Society.

His first objective was to document Buenos Aires, which was already emerging as one of the great Spanish-American capitals, although it still had identity traits of the great village that it had been. In that endeavor, his chamber achieved remarkable records on the so-called popular types supplying a growing population; humble workers who are well reflected in the consecrating book "H. G. Olds - Photographs 1900-1943" of the Antorchas Foundation (1998) with research and texts by Luis Priamo and Abel Alexander.

Olds commercially turned all his production of views through editorials of national and international magazines, to the edition of the popular photographic postcards of various publishers, such as Roberto Rosauer for example, to the registration of fields and ranches and to the direct sale of his works in albums or single copies.

We must point out that his great works are in the General Archive of the Nation and in prominent public and private collections. His valuable archive of glass negatives has been miraculously salvaged after several avatars worthy of an adventure film and is now properly preserved in the Srur Collection.

Abel alexander

President of the Ibero-American Society for the History of Photography