Sale 2489 - Artists & Amateurs: Photographs & Photobooks, October 18, 2018

86 c TINA MODOTTI (1896- 1942)/MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO (1902-2002) Roses, Mexico. Palladium print, the image measuring 7x8 1 / 4 inches (17.8x21 cm.), the mount 13x14 1 / 4 inches (33x36.2 cm.), with Bravo’s signature, notations “TinaModotti, M.A.B. copia, paladio,” and his personal inscription, with a date, in pencil, on mount verso. 1924; printed 1979   [20,000/30,000] Gifted by Manuel Álvarez Bravo to a friend, a Private New York Collector, in 1979. Bravo was a close friend of Tina Modotti, whom he first met in 1923 in Mexico City, where she was living with Edward Weston. A self-taught photographer, he initially relied on repeated viewings of images in magazines and newspapers to hone his art form. Modotti was a charismatic figure who introduced the young photo­ grapher to Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and suggested he show his photographs to Weston. Soon after Bravo’s surrealistically-inspired photo­ graphs connected him with Mexico’s avant-garde artistic community. By the 1930s he exhibited at the prestigious Julien Levy Gallery, in NewYork City, the first commercial space to display photographs alongside other artworks. He maintained an active practice well into his 90s and, according to auction records, printed a total of eight Modotti negatives.