Tina Modotti

mounted, signed and dated in pencil on the mount, framed, 1927

Collection of Thomas Walther, New York

Carol Ehlers Gallery, Chicago, 1999

Sarah M. Lowe, Tina Modotti: Photographs (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995), frontispiece (this print)

Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary (London, 1993), p. 108

Reinhard Schultz, et al., Tina Modotti: Photographien & Dokumente (Berlin: Sozialarchiv, 1989), p. 50

Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti (Aperture, 1999), p. 43

With its dramatic balance of sunlight and shadow, accented by bold diagonal forms, this photograph is one of Tina Modotti's most formally modernist images.  It may have been taken at the Estadio Nacional in Mexico City, completed in 1924.  Another image of this open-air stadium, an equally modernist image showing the amphitheater-like interior, was offered in these rooms as part of the Quillan collection in 2008.  

Modotti would have been attracted to this subject for more than the compositional opportunities it afforded.  The importance of the outdoor arena in Mexican culture would not have been lost on the culturally-aware Modotti.  As a venue for bullfights, celebrations, games, etc., the stadium held a time-honored place in Mexican culture.  With this image, Modotti has documented one of the oldest aspects of Mexican life in a thoroughly modern way.  

At this writing, it is believed that a print of this image has appeared at auction only once before: a print from the collection of Modotti's companion Vittorio Vidali was sold in these rooms in November 1986.