The Life and Work of Carlos Endara Andrade (1865-1954)

Text in Spanish

Born in Ibarra, in 1865 he moved to Panama in 1886 in search of his father who was working in the construction of the Canal and as he had drawing studies he began to work at the Universal Company of the Panama Interoceanic Canal. After meeting the French photographer Luis Blanc, he began photography and soon became associated with Epifanio Garay with whom he founded the "Garay-Endara" photographic studio in Panama in 1888. Between 1899 and 1904 he studied Fine Arts in Paris, specializing in techniques photographic.2

 In 1910 he founded a studio with his brother Victoriano that occupied five floors and was the best known in Panama City. The Panamanian philanthropist Mario Lewis Morgan restored this photographic studio, the first tall building in the country, and which has the first electric elevator that worked in Panama. Since 2009 it has become the Endara House Museum. No other historical study of this nature is preserved in the Americas.3 His photographic work focuses on portraiture, although it also reflects key aspects of life in his time. Endara's lens documented for many decades the thriving development of Panama City, numerous important public events and daily life on the street.4​

 

He collaborated in different Panamanian magazines and newspapers such as Épocas, Panama Mirror and Estampas, became the official photographer of several presidents and became the favorite portraitist of the upper class, the large emerging middle class and the ethnic mosaic of which he has always been composite state of Panamanian society.5​

 

During the 1980s and 1990s, the newspaper La Prensa published the second period of Épocas magazine with photos from the Mario Lewis collection (which several years ago was transferred to the newspaper Panamá América) and since the mid-1990s more have been published. of 600 photographs on the Raíces Sunday page with photos donated by Ricardo López Arias who owns the largest collection of the photographer's negatives.6

 

In 2011 an exhibition of his work was held for the first time outside of Panama, curated by Adrienne Samos, at the Casa de América in Madrid, within the framework of PHotoEspaña with the title "A happy world. Panama in the eyes of Carlos Endara" .7​

 

According to Samos, «In tune with the collective faith in social progress, for Endara a key factor should be the leveling will: white, black, yellow or