ANNEMARIE HEINRICH, an Argentine photographer born in Germany, established her professional career in Buenos Aires in 1930, at the age of eighteen. She was immediately welcomed by the world of entertainment: film studios, theaters, radio stations, and publications. For forty uninterrupted years, she graced the cover of the magazine Radiolandia.

The complete body of Annemarie Heinrich’s work deserves more than one volume, as she ventured with equal success into various branches of photography. The quality of her work earned her a place in encyclopedias, yearbooks, and histories published in Europe, the United States, and South American countries. This first book dedicated to her magnificent portraits of personalities from Argentina’s entertainment world is a tribute to her talent as a portraitist, and also a rebuttal to outdated prejudices that claim a photo of an intellectual is “artistic,” but one of a popular figure is not. The constant publication of these photos in short-lived mass-circulation magazines may have — temporarily — diminished their value as works of art, but they have made them beloved. In a way, these images of Hispanic America’s idols are part of a collective heritage: they belong to all of us.