Amazon.com
In 1913 Italian-born Modotti (1896-1943) immigrated to the United States, where she enthusiastically embraced both radical politics and photographer Edward Weston, the first of many prominent men who would love the charismatic artist. Apart from the formally rigorous, socially engaged photographs that made her reputation, Modotti's most ardent passions were for revolutionary Mexico, where she lived from 1922 to 1930, and for Communist activist Julio Mella, whose murder in 1929 engulfed her in the juicy scandal with which Italian journalist Cacucci opens his dishy biography. Modotti spent the 1930s serving the Soviet Union's interests in many of the world's hot spots, notably Spain during its vicious civil war; commitment to Communism gave her a sense of stability her turbulent personal affairs did not. She died mysteriously four years after her return to Mexico, by rumor at the hands of Stalinist poisoners. Cacucci's fascination with abstruse Communist ideological squabbles may not be shared by all readers, and his methodology is decidedly slapdash: he doesn't provide footnotes, and pages of direct dialogue have no discernable source other than the author's imagination. However, his breathless prose certainly conveys the drama of Modotti's short, intense life. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
The life of Tina Modotti is the stuff of enduring legend. Her sensual, melancholic beauty inspired the work of the most brilliant artists, photographers, and writers of her time, including Diego Rivera, Edward Weston, and Pablo Neruda. Her fierce commitment to the social and political causes of the working class and her affiliation with the Mexican Communist Party landed her at the center of national controversy in Mexico. A gifted photographer in her own right, Modotti is now widely recognized as one of the great artists of the early twentieth century.
Born in Udine, Italy, in 1896, Tina Modotti immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen, settling with her family in San Francisco in order to escape the misery and poverty of the world from which they came. Modotti initially sought work in the local silk factory and as a dressmaker, but her beauty and poise soon launched her into a career as a silent film actress and artist's model. It was through her work as a model that she met photographer Edward Weston. Though already married to California poet Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey (known as Robo), Modotti fell in love with Weston and with photography and left with him for Mexico in 1922.
It was in Mexico that Modotti blossomed, both as a talented artist and as a fiery and dedicated worker for the cause of the revolutionary left, and where she befriended artists Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. However, in 1929 Modotti, long under suspicion by the Mexican police, was arrested in connection with the murder of Julio Antonio Mella, a Cuban revolutionary and also her lover. Though the real killers were never identified, the Mexican press raised a scandal by publishing nude photographs of Modotti taken by Weston and depicting her as a woman of easy virtue. She was eventually exiled from Mexico. Denied re-entry to the United States, Modotti fled first to Germany and then to Moscow, where she abandoned her photography and worked as a bureaucrat for the Communist Party and traveled on clandestine missions for the "Red Rescue."
In 1936 Modotti moved to Spain, where she met Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Andre Malraux, and Robert Capa. Although Capa tried to encourage her to take up her photography again, Modotti was by now dedicating herself exclusively to political militancy. At the fall of the Spanish Republic in 1939, Modotti returned to Mexico, where she died on January 5, 1942.
In this internationally acclaimed biography, Pino Cacucci brings the adventurous, riveting, and tragic story of Tina Modotti to life. He shows great compassion for his subject even as he explores the darker side of the passion that drove her--a side filled with doubts and fears regarding her actions and her commitment to the political cause in which she found herself entrenched. Set in Mexico, Germany, and Spain, with a large and fascinating cast of notable characters, Tina Modotti penetrates the inner sanctum of communism and the artistic circles of the late 1920s and '30s, and it paints a brilliant portrait of a woman and an era.
Customer Reviews:
LAUGHABLE for its historical value.......2000-12-20
Although I agree that San Francisco was home to many artistic and cultural activities that make it distict from any other American city, to assert that it was "Not founded by Anglo-Saxon Protestants, San Francisco developed as a city without Puritan influences, much like the great European cities that favored radical innovations and a healthy indifference toward conventional morality." (can you taste the superiority of the european writer in that quote?)
Anyone who believes that does not know who founded San Fransisco. Guess what. It was Mormons. Yep. They pulled into the bay and off loaded from the Good Ship The Brooklyn, before the gold rush and mass influx of others. Before that, it had been all but abandon as a Presidio by the Spanish. And since I know my history, I can tell you the Mormons of that time had more in common with the Puritanism of the original colonies than other Anglos. But that is just one of the stretches... Of course the Mormons were over run with the advent of the Gold Rush. San Francisco has been a pendulum that swings back and forth from anarchy to corruption in its city government in the last 150 years.
As for the rest of the book, take out some of the added quasi-history spices and it would have been much more valuable, or at least worth recommending. But maybe I shouldn't look at it for historical value, but as a great romance?
An astonishing life!.......1999-02-16
Tina Modotti -- photographer, model, lover of famous men, revolutionary Communist. What a fascinating life. I finished this biography -- which flows like a novel -- inspired to follow my own convictions and amazed by this bewitching, powerful woman.
Book Description
An accessible, collectable book on Tina Modotti. Italian photographer Modotti (1896-1942) was a pioneer among the few women photographers of the 1920s. Having studied with Edward Weston, she soon became an outstanding photographer in her own right. Documenting the people and tumultuous politics of Mexico, her portraits, still lifes and abstract compositions combine a sophisticated sense of design with socially and politically orientated subject matter. Linked to some of the most important artistic and political developments of the twentieth century she was a significant influence on future Mexican photographers, including Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Graciela Iturbide.
Customer Reviews:
A Master of Photography, a Mistress of Weston.......2004-12-19
This very handsomely printed volume by Aperture of Tina Modotti presents an eclectic collection of her photographs, mostly taken in the mid-to-late 1920s in Mexico. Italian-born, Modotti emigrated to the United States, and then to Mexico, during which time she had an extended affair with famed photographer Edward Weston, for whom Modotti also modeled for his nude studies. Partially through Weston's influence, model and actress Tina turned her talents to photography, and the world has been better for it.
Because of her contact with other artists in Mexico, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Modotti's photographic interests spread far afield. Thus, while her work lacks the singular vision of Weston's, her shrugging the cloak of purism revealed instead a versatile photographer and artist. Personally, I find her work more enjoyable than Weston's, though her career was much more short-lived.
Unfortunately for the world, political unrest and circumstances forced her to flee to Soviet Russia. An avowed communist, Modotti spent her time after 1931 helping political dissidents throughout Europe and later aided the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Because the rigid Stalinist regime had no use for her highly-stylized photography, she put her camera down upon arriving in Russia and never picked it up again.
In 1939, she slipped back into Mexico, from which she had been forcibly exiled, but in early 1942, died of a purported heart attack, just as she was planning to resume her photography.
Many of Modotti's photographs would be regarded as "derivative" by some of today's more cynical critics. Examples include plates of Jean Charlot, 1924 (reminiscent of August Sander), Roses, 1925 (see painter Georgia O'Keefe), Police puppets, 1929 (Man Ray), Mella's typewriter, 1928 (Albert Renger-Patzsch), and Wine Glasses, 1925 (Laszlo Moholy-Nagy). Modotti's photographs themselves are nonetheless strikingly graphic and uniformly excellent.
Other photographs in this book, particularly here women of Tehuantepec bear her stamp alone, and her photographs of Mexican laborers and sundry elements of the social landscape, such as photographs of telephone wires and posters predate work in a similar vein by Walker Evans. Clearly, Modotti was quite an influence on the quintessential American photographer.
If only Modotti had been a greedy capitalist instead of a selfless communist, then she would have left so much more material for posterity. As it stands, though, her body of work is a testament to a great creative mind.
Not just good ... but Great!.......2000-06-13
Tina Modotti was not only a good photographer, she was a GREAT one! I don't think we would even know who she was today if it wasn't for her wonderful photographs. I loved this little book and it's a perfect companion to Margaret Hooks' excellent biography: Tina Modotti, Photographer and revolutionary. All Tina fans should have this!
Masterful photographer, Fascinating life.......2000-05-23
I really enjoyed this lovely book of Tina Modotti's photographs. I thought the selection was quite unigue, not the usual ones I've seen reproduced in other books. In fact several of the photos I'd never seen before. Also the essay helped me put her work in context by showing how she developed as a photographer. To my mind she certainly was a master of photography, as well as a fascinating woman. A good book, at a great price!
Average customer rating:
- !VIVA TINISIMA!
- I was on a two month vacation in Mexico...
- Eyes wide open---and focussed on the market
- A heroine's life
- Highly Recommended
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Tinisima
Elena Poniatowska
Manufacturer: University of New Mexico Press
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ASIN: 0826341233 |
Amazon.com
Using quotations from actual letters, characters under their actual names, and events straight out of history, Mexican novelist Elena Poniatowska has reimagined the life of actress and Communist agent Tina Modotti. Modotti was the lover of photographer Edward Weston, the friend of Diego Rivera and other artists, and an agent for the Soviet Union during the murky events of the Spanish Civil War. Poniatowska brushes aside questions of morality and politics to present Tina Modotti as an impetuous romantic, a heroine regardless of the rightness of her cause. The Spanish Civil War forms the backdrop for the last and most dramatic stage of Modotti's life: she was the lover of Vittorio Vidali, who specialized in assassinating anti-Stalinist leftists. Regardless of the stature of the book as literature, it gives a portrait of one of the most fascinating characters on the world stage between the World Wars.
Book Description
For this fictionalized account of the life of Tina Modotti (1896-1942), Elena Poniatowska devoted ten years of research to fully understand the woman who was so caught up in the social and political turbulence of the pre-World War II decades.
At different times in her life, Modotti was a silent screen actress, a model for Diego Rivera's murals, and a lover of photographer Edward Weston. She was also a champion for the Mexican people who lovingly referred to her as Tinisima.
In 1929, Modotti was accused of the murder of Julio Antonio Mella, her Cuban lover. She fled to the U.S.S.R. to escape the Mexican press and then to Europe, where she became a Soviet secret agent and a nurse under an assumed name, returning to Mexico to meet an early death at the age of forty-five.
"Poniatowska has made an art form of blending journalism and fiction. She tells this novel in an urgent present tense, segueing among short, vivid scenes with cinematic virtuosity. Ten years of research and a thorough knowledge of the currents of history contribute to this portrait, but equally important is Poniatowska's intuitive appreciation of a woman shaped and destroyed by her tumultuous times."--Publishers Weekly
"Poniatowska's profoundly moving evocation of her heroine's boundless soul flows like blood through the carefully erected factual structure of the real Modotti's astonishing life story. . . . A tour de force, Tinisima is a work to treasure."--Booklist
This fictionalized account of the life of Tina Modotti is a fascinating story of the complex woman caught up in the social and political turbulence of the pre-World War II era.
Customer Reviews:
!VIVA TINISIMA!.......2003-07-08
Before reading this novel, what I knew of Tina Modotti came from a single Edward Weston photograph. A beautiful woman with penetrating eyes.
Once I began to read "TINISIMA", I became utterly captivated with the life of Tina Modotti. Elena Poniatowska has a way of making the narrative read as if Tina Modotti herself were relating various happenings from her life to the reader, while the author adds her own commentaries as a supplement.
The more I read of this novel, the more I found myself curious about this woman and her life. It got to the point that I could hardly tear myself away from finishing this novel, though it pained me to see how Miss Modotti was manipulated and abused both by some of her friends/compatriots and the Stalinist system she once served so faithfully. I believe it was a mistaken faith, but I respect Miss Modotti for the courage of her convictions. She had good intentions, a big heart, but was prone to blind herself to the evils of Stalinism. Therein lies the ultimate tragedy of her life.
Tina Modotti could have gone on to become one of the greatest photographers of the last century had she not threw herself wholly into Marxist/Stalinist politics. Perhaps it is for that reason that she is not widely known today.
I wish I could have known Tina Modotti. I would have loved to have had lots of conversations with her in some café or small restaurant. While I'm sure we would not agree on a number of issues, I like to think we would have become close friends.
Thank you, Elena Poniatowska, for a beautiful book.
I was on a two month vacation in Mexico..........2003-01-30
and I could not put the book down. The importance of my Spanish immersion classes became secondary to the adventures and passion of Tina in Mexico and abroad. Poniatowska successfully gives readers a glimpse into the life of this artist and activist. Poniatowska gives attention to the social and political environment that contributed to Tina's transformation from a goddess to a committed communista who gave her life to the cause.
Eyes wide open---and focussed on the market.......2003-01-08
Tina Modotti led a fascinating life. If it were ultimately tragic, well, whose isn't ? Born into a poor family in northwestern Italy, she emigrated with them to America as a teenager. She married young, to an artistic sort of fellow, got into the silent movies, went to Mexico with her husband, and fell in love with Edward Weston the famous photographer, who left his wife and family to be with her. As one of the bright lights and sexual epicenters of the Mexican artistic renaissance of the 1920s, Modotti sparkled like a Roman candle. Her last (and true ?) lover was a Cuban revolutionary who got himself assassinated by her side in 1929. She was almost 33. The Mexican government tried to implicate her in the murder, finally deporting her to Europe the following year, despite the best efforts of Diego Rivera and the Mexican Communist Party. From then on, Tina floundered. Germany did not suit her, life in Russia in the `30s was anything but pleasant---she subordinated all her individuality to the needs of the party. She became a Comintern agent in Europe, winding up in Spain, where she slaved away throughout the whole Civil War, fleeing to France at the end, and returning to Mexico with her faithless last husband, also a Communist Party operative. She died there in 1941.
OK, that's the outline of her life in a single paragraph. If you want to know how she fit into all the various circles of her acquaintance, if you want to know what Tina thought about any of this, if you would like any sort of psychological grasp of what makes a person live this way, why so much insecurity, why the need to be controlled (ideas that don't even come up in this shallow work)---then, for God's sake, read another book. This is a journalistic, fictionalized biography. Nothing wrong there, such things could be excellent. It depends on what journal we are talking about, though. TINISIMA, in my opinion, derives from the "National Enquirer". We definitely learn about her sexual activities and feelings, because the writer had her eye firmly on the marketplace. We waltz through her love life, but Tina remains an enigma. We are treated to endless cascades of names, some of which may be more familiar in Mexico than in North America, true, but still the presence of many can only be likened to cameo appearances in certain flashy Hollywood movies. Ernest Hemingway, Leon Trotsky, Frida Kahlo, Palmiro Togliatti, Norman Bethune, Lazaro Cardenas, William Z. Foster, Octavio Paz, Garcia Lorca---the list is endless, but to what purpose ? As a novel, not a biography, Poniatowska could have portrayed Modotti's character as deeply and intimately as she wanted. There was nothing to stop her. Instead, we get "People" magazine.
I don't know another book about Tina Modotti unfortunately. I wanted to find out more about her, and, after a fashion, I did by reading TINISIMA, but I believe the real biography, fictional or serious, has yet to be written. The praises lavished on the book on the frontispiece and back cover should be taken with a large number of grains of salt. This book is seriously flawed-it is neither a biography nor a good novel. 3 stars is a generous rating.
A heroine's life.......2002-11-24
I found this book to be a wonderful historical novel where prolific writer Elena Poniatowski blurs the lines between fact and fiction leaving you believing more than doubting the accuracy of the stories. As you read this book you will go back in time, to a time of Communist idealism that was creeping into Mexico, especially it's artists ideals, specifically the circle surrounding Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. More of a backdrop to the time period the book does not dwell on the relationship between Frida and Tina. It does however explore the Communist movement in Mexico right after the Mexican Revolution. Mostly the book explores the romantic life of Tina in her pursuit of a better society for mankind that takes her globe trotting from nation to nation, from one hot spot to another, hiding and seeking refuge, eluding police and authorities all the while in her quest for an ideal vision. Much of the book evolves around the time Tina spent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. This along with her devotion to the men of her life including but not limited to photographer Edward Weston, Cuban communist Julio Mella and agent Vittorio are the passions that fueled her incredible life. Each chapter has a small black and white photograph from Tina Mondotti's archives. If you have never seen her photographs it is worth checking out. I have another book that features her photographs in Mexico and they are superb reflections of a time now only found in the remotest corners of Mexico. The story in this book has Tina accused of murder, implicated in murder or assassination, deported only to resurface and genrally moving about the globe on various passports and identities. Although this is a romantic version of her clandestine life it is based on thorough research. Incidently, in the current film version of Frida, Ashley Judd plays Tina in the torrid tango dance scene between her and Frida which reults in one of the more memorable visuals of the movie. Elena Poniatowski is a skilled writer who lets her passions dictate her style and the result is powerful image as to who the shadowy Tina Mondotti was. I would recommend this book to those that like historical novels, the Spanish Civil War, Mexico or the intrigue and story behind one of the most fascinating womens life in the early days of Communist spies . This is a grand novela featuring an extraordinary and intimate portrayal of a passionate woman.
Highly Recommended.......2002-07-04
Not only does Tinisima by Elena Poniatowska allow the reader to get a glimpse of Tina Modotti's life, but it also is very engaging for those interested in the history of Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union, especially in the context of the Communist Party in the former two countries. The book peeked my interest even more regarding Mexican history and the history of the Spanish Civil War. The book is also extremely wonderfully written. I haven't read other books by Poniatowska, but I plan to now.
Book Description
A charismatic stage and screen actress. A model whose beauty inspired some of the most arresting images of the twentieth century. A visionary photographer. A revolutionary with deep commitments to communism. A woman whose life, loves, and death were controversial. Tina Modotti (1896-1942) was all of these. Her life was one of almost unimaginable glamor, scandal, and turmoil. This biography portrays Modotti accurately and fairly, cutting through the distortions of myth and rumor that surround her. Perhaps best known as the lover, model, and apprentice of American photographer Edward Weston, Modotti emerges in these pages as a complex woman, deeply passionate in her relationships as well as her art and politics.
Historian Letizia Argenteri examines an array of international historical documents and letters as she traces the path of Modotti's life and career through Italy, California, Mexico, Germany, Moscow, and Spain. Argenteri tells the dramatic story in full detail, casting light on the mysteries of Modotti's life and carefully placing her in the political and social milieu of her time. The many fascinating illustrations in this book further illuminate Modotti's life.
Book Description
Aperture Masters of Photography Six-Copy Collector's Set
Includes Wynn Bullock, Harry Callahan, Eikoh Hosoe, Tina Modotti, Barbara Morgan, and W. Eugene Smith
Aperture's expanded Masters of Photography series presents an engrossing introduction to the photographers whose work has incalculably affected the way we regard the world. Each volume begins with an essay by a leading critic or historian, offering an incisive look at the photographer's career and importance in the history of photography. Each hardcover, clothbound volume in this slipcased set features approximately forty duotone images.
Book Description
Tina Modotti and Edward Weston travelled to Mexico in 1923 at the start of an extraordinary period of artistic creativity that became known as the Mexican Renaissance. Although often perceived as being principally embodied by the politically motivated work of Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and JosŽ Clemente Orozco, the Mexican Renaissance was shaped by the contribution of dozens of artists, both Mexicans and expatriates, and gave rise to an exceptionally hospitable environment for innovative art-making. The work Modotti and Weston made in the 1920s marks the beginning of a Modernist photographic aesthetic that left an indelible mark on the history of photography in Mexico. Each contributed to this history individually: Modotti is known for beautiful still-lifes that gave way to Modernist images of Mexican workers and poetic revolutionary icons. Weston's Pictorialist-influenced imagery was abandoned in favour of sharp, clear, 'straight' photographs and an engagement with form. Also included in this exquisitely produced book is a selection of images by two Mexican photographers, Manuel çlvarez Bravo and Mariana Yampolsky, whose work was influenced by these two foreigners.
Book Description
Now widely recognized as one of the early twentieth century's most extraordinary photographers, Tina Modotti was remembered until recently more for her relationship to Edward Weston than for her own strong, sensuous work. This comprehensively produced biography, now published for the first time in paperback, captures in over 100 striking photographs and a sympathetic, meticulously researched text the fullness of a life wholly committed to political, personal, and artistic freedom. From her early days in Hollywood as a silent film actress, through the creative, fruitful years in Mexico with Weston and her political exile in 1930s Europe, to her sudden death in 1942, Tina Modotti's courage, clear vision, and dramatic flair made her one of the most internationally controversial and widely admired artistic figures of her day. Perceptive and authoritative, Tina Modotti lifts the veil on a fragile life of iron.
Average customer rating:
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Memories of the Future: The Daybooks of Tina Modotti
Margaret Gibson
Manufacturer: Louisiana State Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Modotti, Tina
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ASIN: 0807113085 |
Amazon.com
Tina Modotti's short, intense life (1896-1942) has sparked numerous biographies, but museum curator Patricia Albers's is the first to do true justice to Modotti's photography and to persuasively trace its roots in her personal experiences. Albers does a fine job nailing down the particulars of this remarkable woman's picaresque journey: impoverished childhood in Italy; introduction to bohemianism and radicalism in California; amorous and artistic fulfillment in Mexico; a murder that launched her into the maelstrom of Communist Party activism in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Spain; return to Mexico and premature death. Even more importantly, Albers conveys the essence of Modotti's haunting images, which displayed a modernist technique similar to that of her lover Edward Weston, but applied it to the respectful, loving portrayal of Mexico's common people. Contemporary readers may regret Modotti's decision to abandon photography in 1932 and her unflinching loyalty to Stalinism (including a decade-long liaison with a particularly dogmatic party functionary), but Albers makes readers understand that the same passion that fueled her art and her many love affairs underpinned her commitment to Communism. Modotti's story is not one of reasoned choices and measured steps, but a wild, romantic saga of intrigue, heartbreak, excess, and catastrophe all vividly captured in this poignant book. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
Ten years of research and the discovery of long-forgotten letters and photos enabled Patricia Albers to bring new recognition to this talented, intelligent, and independent photographer whose life embodied the cultural and political values of many artists of the post-World War I generation.
Customer Reviews:
Tina Modotti's Life with Historical Context.......2005-01-18
Tina is fascinating. The author gives a lot of history which is necessary to understand Tina..from SF North Beach to LA to Mexico City. Very insightful about Communist party of 20's/30's and sets up the scenario for membership and activism. Very good book.
Dull writing style.......2004-07-24
I really wanted to read a good book about Tina Modotti, but Albers writing style is so dull, and so flat, I barely made it through chapters. She goes into tedious detail, and I have not gotten any feel at all for Tina. Fortunately, I took the book out of the library, and will return it tomorrow. Perhaps I will try another author, but this is really a great disappointment.
A person worth reading about!.......2000-01-02
"I look upon people now not in terms of race...but in terms of classes...," wrote Tina Modotti to a friend towards the end of this excellent biography. A complex woman with many passions, Modotti's life is described by Patricia Albers in vibrant terms, totally capturing the reader's attention and taking that reader on a journey through the Italy of Modotti's childhood to the United States and finally Mexico, her chosen home. Along the way Modotti's relationships with such artists as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is explored as well as with other notables of her time. Through Albers' exploration of her subject, the reader discovers the evolution of Modotti from actress to noted photographer to active politico. Because of Modotti's many facets the book would be an excellent gift choice. This is a story that makes the reader want to snuggle up in a comfortable chair on a rainy day and read until the sun comes out. It is well-written, informative, colorful and very human.
A person worth reading about!.......2000-01-02
"I look upon people now not in terms of race...but in terms of classes..." wrote Tina Modotti to a friend towards the end of this excellent biography. A complex woman with many passions, Modotti's life is described by Patricia Albers in vibrant terms, totally capturing the reader's attention and taking that reader on a journey through the Italy of Modotti's childhood to the United States and finally Mexico, her chosen home. Along the way Modotti's relationships with such artists as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is explored as well as with other notables of her time. Through Albers' exploration of her subject, the reader discovers the evolution of Modotti from actress to noted photographer to active politico. Because of Modotti's many facets the book would be an excellent gift choice. This is a story that makes the reader want to snuggle up in a comfortable chair on a rainy day and read until the sun comes out. It is well-written, informative, colorful and very human.
What a Life! - What a book!.......1999-05-05
Finally! At last, Tina Modotti's fascinating life is fully realized in print! Albers' attentive eye coupled with the gorgeous photos make this an incomparable experience.
Customer Reviews:
A Revised and Beautiful View of Tina Modotti's Photography.......2001-07-02
Review Summary: Tina Modotti achieved a remarkable level of accomplishment in a photographic career that spanned merely 7 years and 250 images. Her work captures many of the best elements of the compositional skills of Edward Weston, her mentor and lover, while adding a heart-felt attraction for people that Mr. Weston's work lacked. These images of portraits, still lifes, and architecture from her years in Mexico are much more appealing to me than Mr. Weston's are from the same period. The extensive biographical essay also corrects many misconceptions about Ms. Modotti's life.
Reader Warning: This book contains some partial female nudity, mostly of women nursing their babies.
Review: "Tina Modotti is the best-known unknown photographer of the twentieth century . . . ." Her work exhibits "extraordinary formal clarity coupled with incisive social content." Her style obviously was influenced by Edward Weston, due to their long association and personal closeness. Other influences include the Movimento Estridentista (the Mexican reaction to Futurism), New Vision, and the German Arbeiter-Fotograf movement. The vision is uniquely hers.
My assumption is that you have never seen her work. I certainly never had. Ms. Modotti's images are a nice surprise. Often books that make these kinds of claims about their subject don't have the content to support them. This one does live up to its bold premise about her photography. Of her own work, Ms. Modotti observed that her purpose was "to produce not art but honest photographs." All of her images are contact prints, and her technique shows the minimum of trying to provide eye candy. What they do show is a wonderful eye for the interesting and heart-warming. You will have a much more emotional reaction to these images than to the photographs of many outstanding photographers, a group in which Ms. Modotti belongs.
Relatively unschooled in a formal sense, she was an emotionally-based Communist. Some may not appreciate the political content of some of her images, such as the various ways of portraying the hammer and sickle symbol of the Soviet Union. I thought that these photographs were among the least interesting of her works.
Her life history was an interesting surprise to me. Coming from a poor family in Italy, she appears to have pulled herself up by the bootstraps as a seamstress. First working in garment factories, she probably became a costume seamstress and from there launched her performing career as an actress and model. Often portrayed as the lover and friend of various famous men, she probably viewed them as an appendage to her. History has been successfully revised in the excellent biographical sketch in this book.
My favorite images in the book include:
Edward Weston, 1924; Open Doors, c. 1925; Staircase, c. 1924-26; Convent of Tepotzotlan (Stairs Through Arches), 1924; Geranium, c. 1924-25; Easter Lily and Bud, c. 1925; Interior of Church, 1924; Elisa Kneeling, 1924; Carelton Beals, 1924; Portrait of a Woman, c. 1926-29; Federico Marin, 1926; Ione Robinson, 1929; Two Children or Boys from Colonia del la Bolsa, c. 1927-28; Hands Resting on Tool, 1927; Woman with Flag, 1928; Techuantepec Type (Woman Smiling), c. 1929; and Young Pioneers, 1930.
The images for the first two or three years could easily have been done by Edward Weston, but show a connection to daily living that his more ethereal works do not display. After that, the works definitely separate in content, style, and focus. If you like Mr. Weston's work, you may enjoy comparing his Mexican images with hers.
After producing all but a few of these photographs, Ms. Modotti left Mexico for Russia and eventually played an important role in the Spanish Civil War in evacuating children and as a nurse. All of those parts of her life are recounted in the book's biographical essay.
After you enjoy these uplifting views of the nobility of people, nature, and of human efforts, I suggest that you think about what you convey about these subjects to your children or grandchildren. Do they know what your views are and why you hold them? If not, you might consider taking photographs and writing notes to go with them to help share your vision of the world. Whether they agree or not, you will enrich them in important ways.
Seek out the best in every situation!
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Books Index
Books Home
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Tina Modotti: Between Art and Revolution
Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: The Mexico Years
Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti
