Tina Modotti - Woman in Tehuantepec

Woman in Tehuantepec - Mexico 1929

"Shot from below to emphasize the woman’s noble and heroic stature, the photograph was taken during a trip to Tehuantepec in Southern Mexico. Unlike Modotti’s earlier photographs, the photographs taken in Tehuantepec were largely unposed, typically street photographs that captured the daily lives of the women that lived there."

This print was produced by the Museum of Photography of the National Photograph Library in Pachuca, Mexico in charge of the Modotti negatives provided by Vittorio Vidali, Trieste, through Carlos Vidali.

The exhibition showing this print has been on tour since 1989 in updated format
as recently shown at Museo Cerralbo, Madrid, PHotoESPAÑA 2022 and subsequent places.


Tina Modotti (born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini,
(August 16/17, 1896 – January 5, 1942)
was an Italian American photographer, model, actor, and revolutionary political activist for the Comintern. She left her native Italy in 1913 and emigrated to the United States, where she settled in San Francisco with her father and sister. In San Francisco, Modotti worked as a seamstress, model, and theater performer and, later, moved to Los Angeles where she worked in three film productions. She later became a photographer and political activist and aid worker in Spain.

In 1923, Tina Modotti returned to Mexico City with Edward Weston. She agreed to run Weston's studio free of charge in return for his mentoring her in photography.
Together they opened a portrait studio in Mexico City. Modotti and Weston quickly gravitated toward the capital's bohemian scene. which included Frida Kahlo, Lupe Marín, Diego Rivera, and Jean Charlot.
Modotti also became the photographer of choice for the Mexican mural movement, documenting the works of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. Between 1924 and 1928, Modotti took hundreds of photographs of Rivera's murals at the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico City. Modotti's visual vocabulary matured during this period, such as her formal experiments with architectural interiors, blooming flowers, urban landscapes, and especially in her many beautiful images of peasants and workers.
In 1926, Modotti and Weston were commissioned by Anita Brenner to travel around Mexico and take photographs for what would become her influential book Idols Behind Altars.
As a result of the anti-communist campaign by the Mexican government, Modotti was exiled from Mexico in 1930. She first spent several months in Berlin, followed by several years in Moscow.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Vidali (then known as "Comandante Carlos") and Modotti (using the pseudonym "Maria") left Moscow for Spain, where they stayed and worked until 1939.
Modotti left Spain with Vidali and returned to Mexico under a pseudonym.
In 1942, at the age of 45, she died from heart failure while on her way home in a taxi from a dinner at Hannes Meyer's home in Mexico City.