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| Edward Weston Tina Modotti ca 1925 Gelatin Silver Print |
Modotti married American painter and poet Roubaix "Robo" del L'Abrie Richey in 1918 and the couple moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the burgeoning motion picture industry. Modotti met photographer Edward Weston and his assistant Margrethe Mather and, by 1921, she was his favorite model and his lover by the end of that year. Robo left Los Angeles for Mexico where he died of smallpox while on vacation two days before she arrived.
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| Edward Weston Tina Modotti ca 1925 Photograph Gelatin Silver Print |
When Weston moved to Mexico City two years later in 1923, Modotti became first his assistant, apprentice and eventually his partner in a joint photographic enterprise. The close-up vantage points and lack of context in her early work attest to the influence of Weston and his emphasis on “the thing itself,” but, as Modotti gained experience, her images took on a personal character. The couple embraced the capitol's bohemian scene and used their connections to begin a portrait business.
When Weston returned to California in 1926, Modotti stayed behind. In 1927 she joined the Communist Party, and her political affiliations and activities changed the direction of her work. She published her images, including portrait studies, in the magazines Mexican Folkways, Formas, and the more radical El Machete.
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| Tina Modotti A proud little agrarista or better son of one ca 1927 Gelatin Silver Print |
Modotti's one-woman show at the National Library held in December 1929 was advertised as "The First Revolutionary Photographic Exhibition in Mexico." The apex of her career as a photographer would quickly plummet within a year.
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| Tina Modotti Market Scene ca 1927 Gelatin Silver Print |
As a result of the anti-Communist campaign by the Mexican government, Modotti was expelled from the country in 1930 and placed under guard on a ship bound for Rotterdam. The Italian government repeatedly attempted extradition but she managed to evade it by her connections with International Red Aid Activists. Modotti's limited visa allowed for her final destination to be Italy. She stopped in Germany and Switzerland on her way there and was convinced by the deteriorating situation in Germany to move to Moscow in 1931.
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| Tina Modotti Woman of Tehuantepec ca 1929 Gelatin Silver Print |
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| Tina Modotti Hands of the Puppeteer ca 1929 Gelatin Silver Print |
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| Tina Modotti Misery ca 1928 Gelatin Silver Print |
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| Tina Modotti Pinatas ca 1926 Gelatin Silver Print |
Sources
1. The Web Museum, Tina Modotti, Biography, http://www.modotti.com/?page_id=5, retrieved May 26, 2015.
2. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Women Photojournalists, Tina Modotti, http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/modottiessay.html, retrieved May 26, 2015.
3. Encyclopedia Britannica, Tina Modotti, Italian Photographer, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1160291/Tina-Modotti, retrieved May 26, 2015.
4. George Eastman House, Still Photograph Archive, http://www.geh.org/ar/strip87/htmlsrc3/modotti_sld00001.html, retrieved May 26, 2015.
