Daisy Ascher was born in Mexico City in 1944 to Samuel Ascher and Luisa Oved. She studied at Universidá Motolinía and at Universidá Anáhuac. She died of cancer on 31 March 2003, at 58.[1]
She studied art at Motolinía University and Universidad Anáhuac, and also studied with the Photographic Club of Mexico.[2] She published ten books of her photography, including Formas Silenciosas and Cien retratos por Daisy Ascher.[3]
Ascher's influences included Eugene Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Manuel Alvarez Bravo[4] as well as Richard Avedon, Yousuf Karsh and Sam Haskins, all of them dedicated to portraits.[1]
Ascher was part of the Photographic Club of México and ventured into various themes and photographic genres making photographs for magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Vanidaes and Foto Mundo. She was recognised for her work by Atget, Stiglitz, Strand, Alvarez Bravo and Cartier-Bresson.
She was known for her portrait studies of José Luis Cuevas and Juan Rulfo. Her book “Revealing José Luis Cuevas” took her seven years to complete and is considered one of her best known works.[1]
Among the exhibitions her work appeared in was a large touring exhibition of Mexican photography entitled Cofradía de Luz in 1996.[5]
Mexican historian Fernando Benítez (1912-2000) wrote of Ascher, "Daisy masks and unmasks. Daisy armed with her magic eye, penetrates, bathes in light, covers with shadows, stands out and vanishes, and leaves us a gallery of amazing ghosts."[3][6]
