The work of radical photographer Tina Modotti stays relevant
Klaudia Prevezanos
January 5, 2022
Modotti's modern shots remain style-defining, with Madonna being a collector. Yet, she traded in her camera in 1931 to serve the Communist Party of Moscow.
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Elegant beauty: Tina Modotti and her radical photographs
The photographs of the Italian photographer Tina Modotti were avant-garde in the 1920s. She was also ahead of her time in life.
Image: akg-images/picture-alliance
Famous roses
This photograph of a bunch of roses is probably the most famous picture by Italian photographer Tina Modotti. A detail shot in black and white, the picture's cropping seems random. An image of timeless beauty, the photo which is probably from 1924, clearly reflects Modotti's revolutionary style of photography. She died 80 years ago, on January 6, 1942, aged only 45.
Image: akg-images/picture-alliance
Like a backdrop
Unusual angles, clean lines, no people. The photograph of the scaffolding at the Mexico City stadium was as modern in its simplicity as it was radical in the photography of the 1920s. Born in Udine, Italy in 1896, Modotti came from a poor family and had emigrated to the United States when she was 17, where she worked as a seamstress and actress.
Image: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
Not just people-free photos
Modotti photographed these construction workers at the Mexico City stadium, probably in 1927. The lives of ordinary, disadvantaged people were also a central motif in Modotti's work. She first traveled to Mexico in 1922 — together with her lover, the famous US photographer Edward Weston (1886-1958), who taught her the basics of modernist photography.
Image: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
Talented beauty
In 1923, Modotti and Weston moved to Mexico together and worked in their shared studio. The couple became part of the cultural and social movement that changed the country since the Mexican Revolution in 1910. The young Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera counted among their friends. Modotti became a photographer for Rivera's murals and posed for him herself.
Image: picture-alliance/J. Hagemeyer
Edward Weston: teacher, partner, friend
Influential US photographer Edward Weston left his family to live with Modotti for a few years. He returned to the United States in 1926. According to biographer Margaret Hooks, Modotti's most productive period began thereafter, as she went on to create some of her most famous images. Modotti remained friends with Weston until she devoted herself entirely to political work in Moscow.
Image: imago images/Reinhard Schultz
Mexican worker with 'El Machete' newspaper
The reading worker is one of Modotti's most famous shots, probably taken during this prolific period. According to her biographer Hooks, the photos for "El Machete" were an integral part of Modotti's work. She also photographed Mexican folk art for coffee table books and documentaries. In addition to their simple beauty, the images of Mexican workers usually have a political component.
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Hammer, sickle and sombrero
These three symbols represented the life and movement of Mexican farm workers in the 1920s. Modotti combined modern aesthetics and political content in this famous photograph. Hailing from a poor family herself, Modotti was already concerned as a young woman with issues of social injustice and with the lives of disadvantaged people.
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A sought-after photographer
The versatile photographer earned her money with her portraits for the rich Mexican upper class. It was fashionable to pose in front of her camera and have her pose for them. Here for instance is a portrait that Modotti shot of Maria Marin de Orozco, sister-in-law of Diego Rivera.
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Modotti the communist
In 1927, Modotti joined the Mexican Communist Party, that had close relations with the Soviet Union (USSR). This picture was taken by Modotti at a reception for the Mexican party members at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. After Modotti was expelled from Mexico in 1930, she worked only politically for the Communist Party of Moscow.
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Women and children as subjects
Modotti repeatedly photographed the intimate subject of the baby at the breast, which was an unusual one for the 1920s and 1930s. In 1928, the artist began having a relationship with exiled Cuban revolutionary Julio Antonio Mella. He was however shot dead the next year, while walking beside her on the street.
Image: imago images/Reinhard Schultz
Mexican woman at work
Mella's murder trial was used by the judiciary to discredit Modotti — with her political activities and private life being branded as immoral. Modotti traveled to Tehuantepec, a narrow strip of land between Central and North America, and photographed mainly women and children going about their daily lives.
Image: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
Return to Europe
In 1930, Modotti was expelled from her adopted country Mexico for political reasons. Barred as a communist from entering the US, she sailed to Europe instead. She could not return to her native Italy, that had become increasingly fascist. Thus, she stayed in Berlin for a few months. This is a photo she took at the Berlin Zoo.
Image: imago images/Reinhard Schultz
Turning away from photography
In 1930, Modotti followed the Italian Communist Vittorio Vidali to Moscow. There he worked for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. From then on, Modotti too worked only for the party of the dictator Stalin. She ended her career as a photographer. Earlier photographs, such as the woman with flag, continued to be printed, as on the cover of the German A-I-Z (Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung).
Image: ollection Jonas Kharbine Tapabor/imago images
Traveling on behalf of Moscow
From Moscow, Modotti and her lover Vidali were sent to Paris, and later to Spain. Here, using false names, the two supported the Republican Brigades against fascist dictator Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Later, Modotti traveled back to Mexico under an assumed name. She no longer took photos like this picture of the convent of Tepotzotlan, dated around 1924.
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Early death, distinctive photos
From 1939 to 1942, Modotti lived in seclusion in Mexico, with little money or contact with old friends, and under an alias as she was in the country illegally. On January 6, 1942, she died of heart failure in a cab at the age of 45. Her friend Pablo Neruda wrote a poem about the loss. Her distinctive shots, like the one here of calla lilies, were exhibited as early as March 1942 in Mexico City.
Image: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
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Tina Modotti's black-and-white photos might very well hang in singer Madonna's living room. The US superstar is one of the most prominent collectors of Modotti's work from the 1920s. Madonna, in fact, sold a Mercedes to fund the first retrospective of Modotti's work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1995.
After all, the two women have in common Italian origins and family histories of immigration to the United States. For both, their talent and ambition rendered them social climbers.
Pablo Neruda, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera
Modotti's photographs of roses, interiors, or a baby at the breast from the 1920s had a considerable influence on photography.
Although they are now almost 100 years old, they remain timeless in their simplicity and elegance.
Modotti was born 125 years ago in August 1896 and is remembered for being a modern woman who determined her own path in life.
She was highly involved in political events of her age, and photographed protests by Mexican farmers in the 1920s, before joining the Mexican Communist Party in 1927. At the same time, Modotti was an in-demand portrait photographer of the country's wealthy upper class.
In 1930, she was expelled from Mexico, her adopted country, for political reasons.
She mixed and mingled with Mexico's artistic elite. The young Frida Kahloand her partner Diego Rivera — both also artistically and politically active in Mexico — belonged to Modotti's circle of friends.
Modotti documented life in Mexico, as seen here with men reading a newspaperImage: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
When she abruptly died at age 45, 80 years ago, her Chilean friend Pablo Neruda, writer, anti-fascist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote a poem about this loss.
Sexual independence instead of marriage
"In her relationships, her sexuality and her career, she made difficult choices — sexual independence instead of marriage, political commitment instead of personal security, revolution instead of art," Margaret Hooks writes in her biography "Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary."
Starting in 1930, Modotti worked from Moscow for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, led by the dictator Josef Stalin. She even ended her career as a photographer to work full time for the party.
Later, the party sent her to Spain, together with her lover, the Italian Communist party agent Vittorio Vidali.
There, both were active under false names, supporting the Republican Brigades against the fascist dictator Franco in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
Modotti was friends with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, among other Mexican elitesImage: imago images/Reinhard Schultz
An exhibition after her death
She is said to have stopped using her camera in the years leading up to her sudden death on January 6, 1942 in Mexico.
But her artistic work remained popular, and a first exhibition was held in Mexico City shortly after her burial in March 1942. "Tina, the militant fighter, had not long been in her grave when Tina Modotti, the photographer, was revived," writes Hooks in her Modotti biography.
And although she was denied entry to the USA in the 1930s as a communist, her elegant and graceful photographs can still be seen in numerous museums and exhibitions in the USA, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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The social climber
Modotti was born in Udine, Italy on August 17, 1896. Her father, a mechanic, immigrated to the USA in 1906. Modotti, whose full name was Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini, started working a factory at age 12 to support her family.
In 1913, when she was barely 17 years old, Tina traveled to the USA and worked as a seamstress in San Francisco. She worked as an actress in the city's Italian community, even appearing in several silent films.
In 1918, she moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Canadian poet Roubaix de L'Abrie Richey. It was there that she met the influential American photographer Edward Weston in 1921. She posed for his photos and eventually the pair became lovers.
Modotti had a number of professions before becoming a photographerImage: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
Modotti and Mexico
Modotti traveled to Mexico with Weston for the first time the following year, where numerous intellectuals and supporters had been staying since 1910 in the wake of the Mexican Revolution and ensuing social upheaval. Her husband, however, died suddenly of smallpox.
This first visit to Mexico in 1922 was decisive for Modotti's path in life and her work.
Modotti returned to Mexico several times and during her visits, Weston taught her the basics of modernist photography.
It was here that Modotti started to photograph Diego Rivera's murals.
In 1926, she and Weston separated, and he returned to his family in the United States.
Modotti was depicted in a 1925 painting titled 'Mother Earth' by Diego RiveraImage: akg images/picture alliance
After Weston's departure, Modotti's most productive period as a photographer began, according to Margaret Hooks. In addition to photographing Mexican folk art, Modotti worked as a photo journalist for the Mexican magazine "El Machete." These shots became some of her best-known photographs.
Modern photos with a political message
But the country's wealthy and prominent upper class were also among her clients: Modotti made a living by taking their portraits. She also took a number of photos for pleasure: lilies, women and their children, abstract lines of wooden scaffolding and telegraph poles.
In Mexico, she had a relationship with exiled Cuban revolutionaryJulio Antonio Mella starting in 1928. In 1929, he was shot dead as he walked next to her in the street. The trial surrounding the murder served to discredit Modotti's reputation, claiming her lifestyle and political activities were immoral.
This horrified Mexican elites who had until that point had been happy to hire her for portraits.
In 1930, she was expelled from Mexico and went to Europe.
Madonna is one of the most prominent collectors of Modotti's work.Image: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
Political work instead of photography
She spent several months in Germany in 1930 where her works were exhibited, but she did not gain a foothold in the increasingly fascist country.
Out of money, she eventually accepted the invitation of the Italian Communist Vittorio Vidali to come to Moscow and dedicate herself to working for the Communist Party, first in Paris, then in Spain.
Modotti liked to photograph the lives and work of ordinary people in MexicoImage: Reinhard Schultz/imago images
After the victory of Spanish dictator Franco, Modotti returned to Mexico in 1939. In Mexico City, the now 45-year-old lived in seclusion, with a meager income and little contact with former friends.
On January 6, 1942, as she was returning from a dinner, she died unexpectedly in a taxi. A doctor later determined that heart failure was the cause.
Thanks to support by prominent fans like Madonna — and the fact that her works were simply ahead of their time, Modotti's legacy lives on.
