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

circa 1924-26, printed between 1976 and 1979 by Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Lowe, pl. 10; A Fragile Life, p. 110)

The collection of Carlos Vidali, son 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. 

This photograph, on a matte, double-weight paper with a slightly textured surface and soft highlights, is in generally excellent condition.
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The photograph offered here comes originally from the collection of Carlos Vidali, son of Vittorio Vidali (1900 - 1983), Tina Modotti's close friend and political companion during the last 15 years of her life.  At the time of Modotti's premature death in Mexico in 1942, many of her photographs and negatives were in Moscow, left there when she moved to Spain during that country's civil war. Around 1949, these photographs and negatives were taken by Vidali's daughter Bianca to Trieste, where her father had moved after the second World War. 

In the 1970s, Vidali's son Carlos transported the photographs and negatives from Italy to Mexico, where they were left with the photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo for safe-keeping.  Álvarez Bravo, a good friend of Modotti during her years in Mexico City, requested the Vidali family's permission to print from some of the negatives. Experimenting with varying papers and printing techniques, Álvarez Bravo both explored and attempted to re-create different aspects of Modotti's work, which had been an inspiration to him decades before. 

In August of 1979, the Vidali family donated Modotti's negatives to the Museo del la Fotografía, Fototeca del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, in Pachuca, Mexico. Álvarez Bravo in turn gave to the Vidalis the prints he had made from the negatives, retaining--with the family's permission--a few for his own personal collection.  Other than the extremely limited quantity of prints made by Modotti herself, there are few extant prints of her seminal images; prints by Álvarez Bravo, including the one offered here, are among a small number of posthumous prints made from her negatives, and of these posthumous prints, the ones that most closely express Modotti's vision, as Álvarez Bravo was personally and well-acquainted with both the photographer and her work.