By Evelyn Nieves
Can you imagine what it was like to be a “woman photographer” in the early 20th century? Not easy. Sexism ran rampant, even in the creative class. But in Mexico, the end of the revolution of 1910-20 ushered in a period of new artistic freedom, and intrepid female artists seized the moment. They took their cameras to the streets, challenging mores and conventions, playing with forms of expression and creating images that influenced the art of future generations. In a country where women didn’t fully win the right to vote until 1953, this was quite the feat.
Nine pioneering photographers, with images spanning 90 years, are celebrated in a new exhibit at Throckmorton Fine Art in New York. “Mexican Photography: Women Pioneers I,” which runs through Nov. 14, includes black-and-white images from some of Mexico’s most celebrated photographers, though most are not famous outside the art world.
It was hard enough to jump the hurdles imposed on women by a male-dominated society, said the gallery owner Spencer S. Throckmorton. “They took initiative; they took risks,” Mr. Throckmorton, who specializes in Latin American photography, wrote in the exhibit catalog. “I have to believe that their determination, their zeal and their fearlessness shaped their images of what they saw and what they photographed.”
The photographers include Tina Modotti, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Kati Horna and Mariana Yampolsky, early pioneers who have died, and Colette Urbajtel, Lourdes Almeida, Cristina Kahlo, Graciela Iturbide and Flor Garduño, who are alive and working today.
What they photographed — and, for the contemporary artists, what they continue to photograph — runs the gamut. Family and personal portraiture, images of Mexican street life, the country’s varied landscapes, themes relating to class and gender, scenes with a surreal twist.
Tina Modotti, whose life story is a Hollywood screenwriter’s gift from the gods, was the earliest. Born in Italy in 1896, she emigrated to San Francisco with her family as a teenager, then moved to Hollywood, where she acted in silent films, met Edward Weston and became his model, lover and student. Eventually, the couple moved to Mexico. The country proved irresistible to artists intrigued by a social landscape ready for reinvention, and Modotti was no exception. She considered Mexico her one true muse.
But it was an unrequited love. Modotti, a Communist, was kicked out of Mexico in 1930 for her political activism (which also caused a rift with Weston). But before she was deported, Modotti, a friend of and portraitist for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, mentored Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1902-2002), who would become one of the most significant photographers of the 20th century.
Alvarez Bravo bought Modotti’s photographic equipment before she left the country and became friends with her friends, including Weston and many of the leading artists of the Mexican renaissance. He also took over Modotti’s job as a photographer at a Mexican arts and culture magazine, and he mentored peers and protégés who would become master artists in their own right. They just so happened to be women. In fact, most of the photographers represented in the Throckmorton exhibit were part of Alvarez Bravo’s “school,” or orbit, and know each other’s work.
Lola Alvarez Bravo (1903-93) was his first wife. The French-born Colette Urbajtel (b. 1934) was Alvarez Bravo’s third wife and widow. Graciela Iturbide (b. 1942) and Flor Garduño (b. 1957), two of Mexico’s most renowned artists today (Ms. Iturbide’s first collection, “Mujer Angel,” is a collector’s item), both studied under Alvarez Bravo. The Hungarian-born Kati Horna (1912-2000), who was shaped as a teenage photographer by her boyfriend, Robert Capa, also taught Ms. Garduño in Mexico City and knew Alvarez Bravo.
Mariana Yampolsky (1925-2002), who was born in Chicago of Russian-Jewish parents but moved to Mexico to study under Manuel and Lola Alvarez Bravo, reflects her mentors’ influences in images of people from the countryside that explore what makes us human.
Cristina Kahlo (b. 1960) grew up in an artistic family shaped by the Mexican renaissance and its stars, including her great-aunt Frida. Lourdes Almeida (b. 1952), another Mexico City native, was also informed by the giants of the Mexican renaissance, including Ms. Yampolsky, Ms. Iturbide and Ms. Urbajtel.
Each photographer approaches her art her own way. But what allowed these pioneering photographers to flourish was their connection to an artistic community. Artists, intellectuals and free spirits flocking to Mexico after the revolution created an atmosphere of contagious creativity and artistic ambition that lasted decades and still resonates today.
“Mexican Photography: Women Pioneers I” is on exhibit at Throckmorton Fine Art in New York through Nov. 14.
Source: The New York Times
