Tina Modotti | Commemorating 100 years since her arrival in Mexico

JULY-AUGUST
4TH. FLOOR GALLERY | FREE ENTRANCE 

The commemoration of a century since Tina Modotti first arrived in Mexico is a great reason to show her work and become immersed in her vision of everyday life in a foreign nation that, after a while, she considered her own.

This curatorial selection of captivating images printed and authorized by the INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico), from its archives and from the private collection of the International Institute of Photography, some of them unpublished, shows the evolution of Tina Modotti's art, manifesting her interest in workers, nature, portraiture and rebellious political activities.

With this exhibition we want to celebrate the centennial of Tina Modotti's arrival in Mexico, where she became a world-renowned photographer and where she developed most of her career. At the same time, we want to share with the Mexican, Italian, and international communities of the DMV, the best of her photographic work, while educating visitors to the exhibition about Tina Modotti's relevance as one of the world's greatest photographers of the early 20th century.

Tina Modotti, Portrait by Edward Weston Mexico City 1924.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini, known as Tina Modotti, was born on August 16, 1896 in Udine, Italy. She was an Italian photographer, activist, and social fighter in Mexico. A woman ahead of her time who fought for the rights of the working class and became a militant communist.

Due to the precarious situation that her family lived in Italy, in 1913 Tina emigrated with her parents to San Francisco, United States, and worked in a silk factory (from 1913 to 1914), later she was a dressmaker.

In 1917, at the age of 21, she married the artist Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as Robo. In subsequent years, Tina Modotti ventured into the field of acting, participating as an actress in silent films in Hollywood. In 1921 she met the American photographer Edward Weston, with whom he worked as a model while learning from him to use the camera. At the end of 1922 she traveled to Mexico with Weston.

Their pictures of Mexico, in addition to their aesthetic vision, portrayed the misery and injustice that existed in the country. When Weston returned to the United States, Tina remained as the head of the photography studio they had both founded in Mexico City. There, she gradually became involved in political activism, a witness to the exploitation of the working class since her childhood and established strong ties with members of the group of the Mexican Union of Artists, where figures such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Diego Rivera participated.

In 1930 she was unjustly accused of complicity in the assassination attempt against the elected president of Mexico, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, perpetrated by Daniel Flores on February 5, 1930 and deported to Germany, along with the communist leader Vittorio Vidali.

Just before leaving Mexico, Tina Modotti handed over her photographic archive to Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who considered her to be his initiator. Throughout the years, he preserved most of the Modotti collection.