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(Udine, Italy 1896- Mexico City 1942)
Tina Modotti was a model, actress, photographer and political activist.
Born in Udine, northern Italy, the artist moved to the United States and settled with her father in San Francisco in 1913.
Modotti was only 16 years old and soon became a leading actress in the local Italian theater. She quickly became a well-known figure in the bohemian culture of Los Angeles.
“I consider myself a photographer, nothing more. If my photos differ from what is usually done in this field, it is precisely because I try to produce not art, but honest photographs, without distortion or manipulation.” (Tina Modotti, On
Tina Modotti was one of the most eclectic artistic personalities of the last century.
She was a photographer, actress, muse to artists and poets, and political activist. Her career as an actress and photographer had already blossomed in 1920.
Tina Modotti’s artistic personality is rich with important talent and characterized by a sharp gaze capable of reaching the essence of the things she observes and reproduces. Her studies of folk traditions, urban architecture, and famous reports on the working classes and revolutionary movements in South America tell us stories of men, women and territories. The famous studies on the hands of men and women who create and work become tools of identity construction.
Tina Modotti dedicated many of her works to documenting the living conditions of indigenous peoples.
She always photographed the common people with great dignity and spontaneity. In fact, mostly women fill her visual universe, enhanced by her artistic sensitivity and the peculiar use of light and black and white.
Modotti captures a moment in life, leaving her mark as an artist photographer. By doing so, each print leads us back to her, the Mexican artist, with her unique soul, her eclectic essence.
In 1918 she married painter Roubaix de l’Abrie Richey, nicknamed Robo. The couple later moved to Los Angeles in order to pursue a career in the movie industry.
Her husband died in 1922 and Tina had to travel to Mexico for the funeral. There she came across the artistic works of Mexican muralists. Later she became strongly attracted to the Mexican cultural renaissance of the 1920s.
Together with the famous American photographer Edward Weston (1886-1958), Tina Modotti opened a portrait studio and was very influential in the revitalization of the Mexican art movement of the early 1920s. Their Mexican studio became a point of convergence for artists, writers, and political activists.
Modotti’s greatest achievement was capturing scenes of Mexico in the nation’s most vibrant period; her photographs combined artistic form with the social context of the time.
For political reasons and a murder charge she was expelled from Mexico in 1930. Modotti died of a heart attack once she returned to Mexico City in 1942.
The US greatest museums rediscovered Modotti’s work in the 1990s and later many exhibitions took place throughout Europe and the world.