• Home
• Who are we?
• Contact
• They still
• Advertising
• Link to us

Influenced Mexican photographer Tina Modotti in the early twentieth century

Owner of an Debugged style that enabled him to achieve crisp images and compelling characterized by a complete absence of sentimentality and amaneramiento, and that influenced the Mexican photographers of his time, Tina Modotti was born on August 17, 1896 in Udine, Italy.

Possessing a tenacity that placed it in history as a woman and iconic revolutionary, Tina was part of a modest family who emigrated in the early twentieth century to the United States, where his drive soon became the breadwinner of his house.

According to his biographers, the artist of the lens was nudist and Italian theater actress in San Francisco. Then, at age 20 he married Roubaix of L `Abri Richey, with whom he began to frequent the bohemian intellectual in that city.

In the first decade of the 20s, Roubaix moved to Mexico to try their luck, but there fell ill and died of smallpox. Later, the young widow became a model and lover of photographer Edward Weston, with whom he began a romantic life.

Both moved to Mexico where they were welcomed by the Mexican intellectual circle who then hosted painters, writers, poets, scientists and humanists.

Tina Modotti fell in love with the country. Subsequently, between 1924 and 1929, lived his most brilliant years, since there was no big party or the girl who was not invited.

Next to Weston, Modotti traveled extensively in Mexico to film and it was during that trip that was shocked and felt reborn in her social concerns.

When they returned to the house they shared, the love was almost extinct and Weston returned to California, where he and his son Brett carried out a work highly praised by critics and fans.

After the departure of Weston, shocked to the core by the harsh reality of the Mexican people, Tina turned to the Communist Party.

Xavier Guerrero, a leading painter of Olmec origin, introduced to the world of politics and became a fervent and sincere Stalinist Marxist, in addition to her lover.

At the party, Tina surrounded himself with new and old friends. For example, the muralists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and while Xavier Guerrero went to Moscow, called by the Party, Tina continued taking photographs of family and working on the wording of the newspaper "El Machete".

There he met in 1928 at the young Cuban revolutionary Julio Antonio Mella, in exile in Mexico.

It was a mutual passion indescribable, but to what Mella murdered in January 1929, in the fact that implicated Tina, who is said was saved by Diego Rivera.

However, Mella's death sparked Tina in her own slow death. Everything that year was devoted to photography and the Red Aid (a branch of the Communist Party), and by December had already invited to present their work at the National Library.

It was their first exposure, but also the first and last time you were recognized as creative.

That was when it proclaimed its status as simple photographer at the service of the socialist cause. The works aroused heated praise from the critics, because it constituted a splendid testament to the artistic potential that holds the picture.

Little happened in Mexico after a failed assassination attempt on the president-elect. Many communists fell prisoners and suspected terrorists including Tina Modotti was expelled from Mexico in January 1930, a year after being discharged Mella.

It had only two days to settle their things and go to Europe. Among the few people who accompanied Tina in those days was a shy boy, aspiring photographer, who gave a camera, with good eye, as he became the most revered Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo.

The 10-year-Tina in Europe were deadly. Stripped of their identity, was a time in Germany, where he pulled out some photos of sharp satirical tone but did not feel comfortable because he was very lonely and also in countries fearful strangers passing through a critical situation.

His only support was Vittorio Vidali, an enigmatic Italian strong personality who had met in the Red Aid of Mexico and he assumed the duty of solidarity accompanied in his forced exile. It is said that remained together until the end, an urgent need for more support for authentic love.

Withdrawal of photography, back in Mexico, Tina's life became very sad. Vittorio Vidali not offered too much attention. To his friends tried to not see them for not putting in trouble. Smoked a lot, you hurt the heart, I lived in fear and bitter, aging and afeada, did not recognize herself.

So it definitely to stop this life torturante it was eternal and unbearable, died alone, quietly and without complaint at the seat of a taxi on January 5, 1942.

It would be 40 years later when a group of feminist theorists Americans discovered and evaluated their works in his real artistic dimension. He also became entranced with the courage of this truly female fighter, who paid with their lives for their inner freedom.

In 1992 she published a novel by Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska called "Tinísima", as called for in July Mella photographer.

And in 1996, met the 100 years of the birth of Tina Modotti, was organized in Finland an exhibition with almost all his work: 118 photographs. Its curator was the specialist Sarah Lowe, who wrote an important catalog, the product of six years of research.

Via Mundo Hispano

You liked this article? Can leave a comment and continue the conversation, or you can subscribe to the feed and get articles like this automatically to your aggregator of content.