The most prolific photographer of Chapala of all time was Jesús González Miranda (1898-1995). Active for over half a century from 1938 until the late 1980s, González signed the bulk of his work, including hundreds of picture postcards, “FOTO. J. GONZALEZ“.
Jesús González. c 1950? Fishermen on beach.
González was in his mid-thirties when he first arrived in Chapala. Born in Cuquío, Jalisco, on 17 January 1898, the son of Florencio González and his wife, Maria Miranda, he lived much of his childhood and youth in Guadalajara where his first occupation (of many he would hold during his lifetime) was as a hairdresser, working at a shop on calle Juan Álvarez.
Life in the city led to him becoming a fan of the theater and González participated in shows at the Teatro Degollado and Teatro Principal as a dancer and member of the chorus. This gave him the opportunity to meet many of the famous artists of the time.
Jesús González. c 1940? Water supply from the lake via ‘pipones.’
In Guadalajara, on 22 September 1922, he married 21-year-old Isabel (“Chabelita”) Mireles Cruz, from Sabinas Hidalgo in the state of Nuevo León. González gave his occupation to the notary registering the marriage as “painter.” The couple, who had no children, subsequently moved to Chapala.
According to Javier Raygoza, González initially moved to Chapala to join his uncle, Dionisio Miranda, in 1926, and stayed to work in a hairdressing salon owned by Juan Enciso. González’s second wife and children told me that he first moved to Chapala a few years later, in 1932.
Jesús González. c 1940? Folk dancing on 8 December in front of parish church.
Regardless of when he first arrived, González was soon regularly providing music for dances, weddings and special events. While Raygoza suggests that González was the first person to introduce public music and movies to Chapala—when he set up speakers, a record player and other equipment on the main plaza in 1933—a fellow photographer, José Edmundo Sánchez (who died that year), had previously done something similar most Saturday afternoons.
Jesús González. c 1960? Boats on the beach.
González began taking photographs and producing postcards in about 1938, specializing in taking portraits of individuals and groups of visitors, the famous and the not-so-famous, enjoying themselves near the pier or in the Beer Garden, the iconic restaurant-bar overlooking the beach. He apparently learned photography from Demetrio Padilla López, a Guadalajara-based photographer who visited Chapala regularly in the 1930s. Business was especially brisk on weekends and holidays.
Jesús González. c 1938? #A-1 – crowded beach.
In his early years in Chapala, prior to the demolition of buildings in central Chapala to create Avenida Francisco I. Madero, the main thoroughfare leading direct to the pier, González photographed patrons of the Widow’s Bar (Cantina de la Viuda). Its proprietor was María Guadalupe Nuño, whose husband, José Edmundo Sánchez, had published numerous postcards of Chapala in the 1920s and early 1930s.
In addition to portrait photos, González also sold hundreds of different postcards featuring local buildings and views at a time when there was a clean, sandy beach in front of the Beer Garden, and when day-trippers outnumbered residents most weekends.
In captioning his postcards, González employed several different numbering systems, the meaning of which he took with him to the grave, making it close to impossible to identify specific series or dates. Very few González images can be precisely dated, though the details of individual buildings and scenes, many of which changed significantly during his lengthy photographic career, do sometimes allow us to narrow the time frame for when they must have been taken.
Jesús González. c 1967. Iconic photo of swimmers on pier. (Fig 8.19 of Lake Chapala: a postcard history)
Some months after the death of his wife, Chabelita Mireles, and following a chance encounter involving a bicycle, González married Margarita Manzo on 30 March 1966. They had three children, the eldest born in 1970.
González, whose nickname was “El Chorchas,” was accorded due recognition for his outstanding photographic endeavors in a television segment devoted to his work. Unfortunately, an attempt organized by Javier Raygoza in the early 1990s to produce a book of González’s photographs as a tribute to the great photographer ultimately came to nothing.
José de Jesús González Miranda died in Chapala on 13 December 1995.
Jesús González. c 1945. Lakefront bar (right) in front of tower of Villa Ana Victoria (demolished a few years later)
Over his fifty-plus years of photographing Chapala, an extraordinary number of subjects had stared, at one time or another, into his lens as he captured school groups, weddings, ceremonies, and all manner of public and private events.
Several years after his death, a number of González’s photographs were published in two collections relating to Lake Chapala arranged by Manuel Galindo Gaitán. According to Galindo, González “left an important collection of photos, irrefutable testimonials of life at Lake Chapala from the earliest years of the last century.” The sentiment is correct even if the time frame is not.
González has bequeathed us a treasure trove of images, a visual testimony whose cultural context and historical significance demand that they be adequately safeguarded for future generations to appreciate.
Jesús González. Date unknown. Sunset over lake.
Appreciation
My sincere thanks to Margarita Manzo viuda de González and her children for answering my questions about Don Jesús, and for their generosity in sharing examples of his postcards. My thanks, also, to Rogelio Ochoa Corona for introducing me to the family and for sharing his personal recollections of ‘El Chorchas,’ and to the late artist Sylvia Fein, who gave me several González postcards dating from the mid-1940s.
Several additional González images are included in If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s Historic Buildings and Their Former Occupants (translated into Spanish as Si las paredes hablaran: Edificios históricos de Chapala y sus antiguos ocupantes) and in Lake Chapala: A Postcard History, which shares the incredible story of how Lake Chapala became an international tourist and retirement center.
Sources
- Aurelio Cortés Diáz. 1988. Semblanzas tapatías, 1925-1945. Guadalajara: Gobierno de Jalisco, 175.
- Manuel Galindo Gaitán. Estampas de Chapala (2 vols). Guadalajara: Ediciones Pacífico, S.A., Vol 1 (2003) and Vol 2 (2005).
- Javier Raygoza Munguía. 1995. “Don Jesús González Miranda “El Chorchas”.” Página Que sí se lee! 18 de diciembre de 1995, edición 49.
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Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).