Cristina García Rodero (born Puertollano, 1949), winner of the 1996 National Photography Prize and the first female Spanish member of the prestigious Magnum agency, is an undisputed reference in contemporary photography. Since the outset of her career she has travelled thousands of kilometers in a constant search for images and people.

That beginning dates back to 1973, when the Fundación Juan March awarded García Rodero an artistic creation scholarship, which she used to buy her first camera. She spent a year visiting Spain’s villages with the aim of documenting and recording their festivals, ceremonies, rites, traditions and ways of life. The result of that endeavour was the series of photographs published in España oculta [Hidden Spain] (1989), a book that established both the appearance and spirit of a very special moment in the country and which became a fundamental milestone in the history of photography in Spain.

In 2024, fifty years after Cristina García Rodero received the scholarship which, in her words, “changed her life” and allowed her “to spend 50 years making a dream come true,” several institutions are celebrating her work with the organisation of the exhibition Cristina García Rodero. Hidden Spain. It includes the series of photographs taken prior to 1989. Starting in May 2024, the exhibition will travel to various Spanish venues (Círculo de Bellas Artes en Madrid, Centro Cultural La Malagueta de la Diputación de Málaga, Museo de Arte Abstracto Español de Cuenca, Museu Fundación Juan March de Palma e IVAM Centre Julio González, Valencia).