TINA MODOTTI

EDWARD WESTON

A Master by another

I adored the work of Edward Weston but it also introduced me to the work of some women who's work I went on to admire at least as much. Not least because of the interest by my dear and much missed colleague at MOMA in Oxford, the then Director's assistant, who went on to curatorship herself, Carol Brown, whose interest in artists like Frida Kahlo and cohorts was an education to me. One of these figures was the legendary and extraordinary figure of Tina Modotti

Edward Weston with his plate camera by Tina Modotti

Modotti was friends with Weston and his wife although was soon to become the former's mistress. She befriended Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and in her short life blazed with political awareness and had an equally vibrant life. The role of mistress was never to suite and she quickly stepped out from under Weston's control and influence.

Tina Modotti - Walter Lipmann

Tina Modotti

Friends - Kahlo and Chavela Vargas by Modotti

Modotti by Weston

“What is important is to distinguish between good and bad photography,” she once explained. “By good is meant that photography which accepts all the limitations inherent in photographic technique and takes advantage of the possibilities and characteristics the medium offers. By bad photography is mean that which is done, one may say, with a kind of inferiority complex, with no appreciation of what photography itself offers.”

Born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini on August 16, 1896 in Udine, Italy, she emigrated to the United States in 1913 to live with her father in San Francisco. Modotti became involved in acting in Los Angeles during the early 1920s, and entered the circles of several artists meeting Trotsky, Sergie Eisenstein and others . In 1923, Modotti and Weston set out for Mexico City, established a photography studio upon arriving, and subsequently joined the Communist Party. Though Weston later returned to his wife in California, Modotti stayed in Mexico and became more involved in radical politics before being exiled in 1931. She stopped producing photographs after this time and in 1939 returned to Mexico under a false name. The artist died on January 4, 1942 in Mexico City, Mexico of congestive heart failure. She was 45

Her work was largely unknown until the 1990s, when a cache of her remarkable photographs was discovered in an Oregon farmhouse. Long overshadowed by her extraordinary life and her relationship with Edward Weston, she was viewed as his muse, rather than as a gifted photographer in her own right. Despite a remarkably short career in photography - just seven years - she created a body of iconic images that confirmed her place in history. By fusing rigorous formalism with a desire to effect social change, she reconceived revolutionary photography through the language of modernism. Her work is now a touchstone in the history of photography, reflecting equally the tenets of modernist photography and the experience of post-revolutionary Mexico. Modotti's photographs continue to inspire many, including many women and activists interested in making a socially and politically relevant art.