Mexico ca. 1900
Photographs by G. P. Thresher

Thresher posing with men dressed in Indian costumes. (Left) Thresher posing by a giant tree in Chapultapec. (Right)

I found this collection of photographs of old Mexico at a small estate sale in Los Angeles in 1965. For most of the years since, the negatives have rested quietly in a drawer. When, last year, friends moved to San Miguel de Allende, I asked them to try to locate a gallery there that might be interested in showing the work. That was successful and it began a cycle of interest that I hope will give Thresher some of the posthumous recognition he deserves.

G. P. Thresher was born in a small town in Massachusetts in 1854 so this year is the 150th anniversary of his birth. Just before going to San Miguel for the opening of the show in June of this year, I acquired a document from the history archive of the Los Angeles main library, written in Thresher’s own hand. It tells about his arrival in Los Angeles in the spring of 1895 along with his wife and three daughters. It lists his profession as a realtor and builder but there is no mention of his work as a photographer or of his love of the diverse culture and architecture of Mexico. During the last years of the 19th and early years of the 20th centuries, Thresher traveled widely throughout Mexico, California and the Arizona Territories. He was clearly an accomplished photographer whose images exhibit an unvarying elegance.

At The Huntington Library in San Marino, near Pasadena and The Bancroft Library on the campus of U.C. Berkeley there are a few examples of Thresher’s photographs of California Missions but this collection of photographs of Old Mexico seems to exist nowhere else.

One of the Thresher daughters. (Left) Mrs. Florence Thresher, their three daughters, Maria, Florence, Helen and two unknown women. (Right)

This collection is beginning to be exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. The original showing was at The Galleriea de Fotographia in San Miguel de Allende, in Mexico. It was scheduled for a month beginning June of 2004 but because of intense interest by a growing audience the show was extended by three months. At present, negotiations are in progress for exhibitions at the Instituto de Cultura de Guanajuato, The Museum of Art in Oaxaca and The Mexican Museum in San Francisco.

Each photograph has a number as well as a full or partial title. These are what was written on each of the film sleeves in Mr. Thresher's hand. The photographs are all 5X7 film positives that were scanned and printed.

Malcolm Lubliner

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The Thresher Los Angeles Home at 37 Westmorland Place