Leo Matiz: Mythmakers: Lower Level Gallery

28 May - 1 Aug 2026

Overview

“I wanted to be a writer or a painter and became a photographer. But I have been an artist. In the hands of an artisan, photography is just a trade. But in the hands of an artist, it is an art."

– Leo Matiz

Westwood Gallery NYC is pleased to present an exhibition dedicated to the celebrated Colombian photographer Leo Matiz (1917–1998), one of the most important visual chroniclers of twentieth-century Latin American culture. Curated by James Cavello, the exhibition explores two defining aspects of Matiz’s work: his psychologically rich portraiture and his use of photography as a creative tool connected to muralism, cinema, and modern art. In 2008, Westwood Gallery NYC introduced the photographer to the United States in the celebrated exhibition, Leo Matiz: The Third Eye.