Deeply rooted in the culture of the Mexican people, Manuel Alvarez Bravo has created a major body of photographic work the significance of which has gone unrecognized until recent years. He has focused on the subtleties of human interaction, particularly in the lower classes, to make eloquent images of dreams, death, and transient life. Bravo became interested in photography in 1922 and purchased his first camera two years later. He experimented with abstract images of folded papers in 1926-1927. In 1926 he received First Prize at the Regional Exhibition in Oaxaca. Bravo met Tina Modotti, who had learned photography as a companion of Edward Weston, in 1927. She deeply influenced and encouraged his work. He began his first significant work soon after their meeting and became a major figure in the blossoming Mexican art movement of the 1930s. Soon after, he met Paul Strand and Henri Cartier-Bresson, both of whom admired his work. He exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City with Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans in 1935 and taught at Hull House in Chicago in 1936. Manuel Alvarez Bravo: The Daughter of the Dancers, 1933
Manuel Alvarez Bravo: The Daughter of the Dancers, 1933