Sophie Rivera

Young Man Through Fence, Candid Camera, New York, 1980

Young Man Through Fence, Candid Camera, New York, 1980 © Sophie Rivera

A photographer of Puerto Rican descent, Sophie Rivera was born in 1938 in the Bronx, New York. Rivera’s work is a documentation of Nuyorican and Latinx working-class communities through portraiture that is environmental, direct, and neutral.

Rivera was also a pioneer in the art world for Latinx art and photography, she was an early member of En Foco and wrote essays calling for a radical feminist rewriting of the historiography of photography. Rivera’s work challenged singular interpretations of the Puerto Rican community and called on the art world to seriously reckon with its interpretation of history.

Sophie Rivera recently passed away on May 22, 2021, may she rest in loving memory.