During her active tenure in the political and artistic scenes in Mexico, Tina Modotti spent a great deal of time with artists, such as Diego Rivera, with similar ideologies and views of the Mexican government and who used their art to voice their opinions. As is demonstrated with her photograph of Diego Rivera’s South wall mural, ‘Corrido de Revolucion’, at Mexico’s Ministry of Education, Modotti used her camera to endorse Rivera’s account of the Mexican Revolution. Modotti, who is rendered holding an ammunition belt in Rivera’s mural on a subsequent wall, is less overt in her photographs with her political agenda, and instead, uses her images to document and promote Mexico’s political and cultural resurgence, as represented by Rivera’s murals, to a wider audience.

This work comes framed and measures, 23.25 x 19.25 inches.

Born to an artistic family in Italy, Tina Modotti (1896-1942) moved to the United States where she found work as a model and later as a silent film actress. In 1918, Modotti met photographer Edward Weston, whom she modeled for and became involved with. Together, Modotti and Weston moved to Mexico where Modotti began to develop her own photography vocation with the help of Weston. Working predominately with platinum prints of still-lifes, Modotti approached her subjects with a modern and technical eye. As she became move heavily involved with Mexico’s social and political scene, her images began to focus more on people and events, such as Diego Rivera’s address to the International Red Aid. Eventually her activism and support of the Communist Party led to her deportation from Mexico in 1929 and her artistic pursuits dwindled. Although her career was short, Modotti produced significant and inspiring work that continues to draw interest since her death in 1942. In 2010, her photographs were included in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition ‘Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography’ in New York, NY. Her work has also been the subject of recent solo shows at KunstHaus Wien, Vienna, Austria (2010); Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc., New York, NY (2009); Sala Murat, Bari, Italy (2008); and Galleria Carla Sozzani, Milan, Italy (2006).

Selected Public Collections:

Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Museum DKM, Duisburg, Germany
Museo de Arte Moderno de Mexico City, Mexico City, Mexico