Edward Weston - Tina

This print was produced in the context of the first German Modotti exhibition, organized by NGBK Berlin, 1989 and with the collaboration of the Museum of Photography of the National Photograph Library in Pachuca, Mexico.
The catalog is titled :"Tina Modotti. Photographien & Dokumente."
1. Januar 1989. It is still available from a few antiquarian dealers. The exhibition has been on tour ever since always in updated format
as shown at Museo Cerralbo,PHotoESPAÑA 2022 and subsequent places.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrKmxgnf3pI&t=44s
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 film. She later became a photographer and essayist.

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 during the depression.
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 erupted 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, Modotti died from heart failure while on her way home in a taxi from a dinner at Hannes Meyer's home in Mexico City.



Edward Weston was a self-taught photographer who migrated to California from the midwest and began his commercial career shooting portraits in Glendale. His early style was characterized by a soft-focus approach that emulated painting and was associated with a school of photography known as Pictorialism. Later, Weston was a member of Group f/64—a community of artist-photographers who developed a photographic vocabulary and visual style described as California Modernism.

In 1921 Weston met Tina Modotti, a young Hollywood actress and political activist, and they formed an intense romantic and professional relationship. The couple traveled to Mexico City, where they lived from 1923 to 1927, and opened a portrait studio. Soon they were introduced to leading figures of radical political and the artistic avant-garde who profoundly influenced Weston, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
Print used in the exhibition, catalog & portfolio
"TINA MODOTTI -Photographien & Dokumente" Berlin 1989
shown at NGKB Berlin and subsequent institutions
see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZwfzjRZfwI
(Parma 2019)

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.[1][2][3] She left her native Italy in 1913 and emigrated to the United States, where she settled in San Francisco with her father and sister.[4] In San Francisco, Modotti worked as a seamstress, model, and theater performer and, later, moved to Los Angeles where she worked in film. She later became a photographer and essayist.
ARTTIST: Edward Weston
TITLE OF ARTWORK Tina Modotti, Mexico City, 1924
DATE OF PRINT 1989
TECHNIQUE Gelatin-silver print
CONDITION Very fine
EDITION 1