Hiram Maristany

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Hiram Sebastian Maristany (August 10, 1945 – March 10, 2022) was a Nuyorican photographer and the director of El Museo del Barrio from 1975 to 1977. He is best known for documenting Harlem’s Young Lords, a group he helped found in 1969 and where he served as the official photographer. His work has appeared in major museums, including MoMA PS1, and he held a residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had a son, Pablo, and a daughter, Alita, and he died at age 76.

Maristany was born in Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem to Puerto Rican immigrant parents Reinaldo and Margarita Maristany. After his father died at a young age, people who knew him say he matured quickly and began to document his neighborhood. He received his first camera at 13 from social worker Dan Murrow, and by 18 he was already a recognized figure in the community. He started in the Photography Workshop, an antipoverty program funded by Columbia University’s Teachers College, on 117th Street.

In 1969, he co-founded El Museo del Barrio with Raphael Montañez Ortiz. In 1971 he started the Amigos del Museo del Barrio nonprofit to support community outreach, with Moreno Vega, Eugene Calderon, and Hilda Arroyo. He served as the museum’s acting director from April 1975 to July 1977. Through his photography with the Young Lords, he helped build the New York chapter and documented their activities as their official photographer.