Horacio Coppola is one of the photographers who represent modern photography in Argentina. Born in Buenos Aires, he was part of the artistic and intellectual milieu of the city, composed of locals and exiles, such as Victoria Ocampo, Grete Stern, Xul Solar and Gertrudis Chale, among many others. Although he studied law at the University of Buenos Aires, Horacio Coppola was interested in cinema and photography from his youth. His brother, a painter and photographer, played an important role in his early training.
From his first trip to Europe in 1930-1931 Horacio Coppola brought back a Leica 35 mm camera; from his second trip he brought back a Siemens 16 mm film camera. His fascination with cinema led him to participate in the foundation of the Cine Club Buenos Aires (1929), which operated alongside the Asociación Amigos del Arte (Friends of Arts Association). Coppola became acquainted with avant-garde painters, some of whom, such as Xul Solar and Alfredo Guttero, were close friends. Encouraged by them, he decided to travel to Europe at the end of 1930. During this first four-month stay he visited Germany, Italy, France and Spain. A second trip in 1932 led him to settle for three years in Germany, France and England. In Berlin he attended a workshop on photography given by Walter Peterhans at the Bauhaus. There he met Grete Stern (together with the photographer Ellen Auerbach she run the photo studio Ringl+Pit), who would later become his wife and with whom he would return to his native city in 1935.
In Buenos Aires, Coppola continued to photograph the cityscape, either spontaneously or in response to commissions. A few months after arriving in Argentina, Victoria Ocampo offered him and Stern an exhibition space for their photographic work. The event was held at Sur magazine in October 1935. Horacio Coppola's photographic work attests to his technical and compositional virtuosity, while at the same time providing a record of the physiognomy and social life of Buenos Aires in the first half of the twentieth century.