Tina Modotti (1896-1942)/Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902-2002)

The photograph offered here comes originally from the collection of Vittorio Vidali (1900 - 1983), Tina Modotti's close friend and companion during the last 15 years of her life.  Entrusted with Modotti's negatives after her death, the Vidali family gave the photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who had known Modotti, an opportunity to print from some of these negatives in the 1970s.  Experimenting with varying papers and printing techniques, Bravo produced a small number of posthumous prints before the negatives were donated to the Museo del la Fotografia in Pachuca, Mexico, in 1979. 

The image offered here, known also as Hands Resting on Tool, is reproduced in a number of monographs and critical assessments of the photographer's work, among them:

Sarah Lowe, Tina Modotti Photographs (New York, 1995), pl. 76

Mildred Constantine, Tina Modotti: A Fragile Life (New York, 1983), p. 140

Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary (New York, 1993), p. 143

Reinhard Schultz et al., Tina Modotti: Photographien & Dokumente (Berlin, nd), p. 87

Sam Stourdzé, Tina Modotti: The Mexican Renaissance (Paris, 2000), cover and p. 78

Margaret Hooks, Aperture Masters of Photography: Tina Modotti (New York, 1999), p. 25

Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti: Phaidon 55 (New York, 2002), p. 61

Like the Hands Washing of the previous lot, the image offered here is one made by Modotti in the cause of the workers of Mexico (please see note to Lot 31).  In Modotti's lifetime, a fuller version of the image was published on the cover of The New Masses magazine, December 1928, with the caption, 'Hands to Build.'

Prints of this image, like the Hands Washing, are scarce.  A platinum print of this image, made by Modotti, is owned by the J. Paul Getty Museum; another platinum print, also by Modotti, was sold in these rooms in 1991 (Sale 6216, Lot 210).  A platinum print of the image made by Bravo was sold in these rooms in 2008 (Sale 8424, Lot 150).